


a time of ancient ghosts

by ElisAttack



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Animal Death, Dancing, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fanart, Fanmix, Haunted Houses, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-10 23:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12309702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisAttack/pseuds/ElisAttack
Summary: “I fear the damnation of your soul,”  Graves confesses in a low whisper, taking Credence’s hand and pulling it to his chest.“You’ll be with me every step of the way,”  Credence leans closer, dark hair falling over his eyes as he murmurs, “I’m always safe with you.”Or the one where Credence can commune with the beyond, Graves is a former naval officer whose career ended in flames, and the spirit haunting the Goldstein sisters’ house is something neither of them have faced before.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gothyringwald](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothyringwald/gifts).



> I've been fussing over this thing for much too long, so I'm giving up and posting the first chapter super early. Updates will come every Sunday till the end of the month!
> 
> This whole thing is inspired by [the seance scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQWtK6cdnYE) in Penny Dreadful, and The Conjuring 1&2, basically I tried to write the scariest thing ever, and hopefully I succeeded. Enjoy!

[spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/elisattacks/playlist/4xkDfJakkXMYBprA7EcZYk) |[rebloggable tumblr link](http://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/post/166201366297/are-you-here-with-us-are-you-in-this-room-are) | [artwork used](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Richmond_self-portrait_1840.jpg)

***

Everyone who knew Admiral Sir William Picquery would agree that he was a good man.

He had been strong, intelligent in his tactics, and kind in his application of them.  Graves had served as first lieutenant to his captain before William earned his admiralty.  Much of what he learned, he learned from him.  He was a brilliant seaman, but that was not what made him good.  It takes a brave man to legitimize his mixed-race daughter, but it takes an even better man to leave her his entire estate and fortune.

With William’s last decree in her hands, Seraphina dashes tears from her eyes as the solicitor packs his papers.  Tipping his head, the rusty hinges keen as he leaves the door open in his wake.

Graves leans against the desk—the cane he needs to walk leans beside him.  The surgeon said he would need it for at least another month, to his disdain.  His bandaged arm already has him looking like an invalid, no matter that Credence disagrees.

“I never thought he would leave everything to me,”  she says, holding the decree close to her chest,  “He said he would, but you know how people are.  I figured someone would have convinced him to give it all to a distant cousin.”

“He loved you, and cared nothing for his extended family,”  Graves says, placing his good hand on her shoulder in comfort,  “He carried a miniature of you close to his heart.  Seraphina, you were his entire life.”  

“Besides his career,”  she points out.

Graves tilts his head in acknowledgement, drawing his eye to an eerie water stain on the plastered wall.  The longer he stares at the dark black shapes and the mildewed swirls, the more it resembles the shade of pitch that coated the surface of a cerulean sea.  A roaring rises in his ears, like the cresting of a wave as his ship and men go up in flames.  

He tears away his gaze away, and the cries of dying men fall into the background.  “As it is with Navy men,”  he murmurs, hair standing on end.

“How are you holding up?”  She asks, voice betraying a hint of concern, expressing more emotion in one moment than in all the years he has known her.  She has always been a stoic woman.  She's had to be.  From high society’s refusal to associate with her family’s blatant miscegenation, to an endless line of suitors interested only in her exoticism and wealth, she has learned to keep a straight face.

“Credence is helping me.”  Graves smiles sadly.  “Though the change has not been unsubstantial.”

“How cruel it is that we lost our fathers within weeks of each other.”

“The last Picquery and Graves respectively.  Both of us, forty years old and unmarried,”  Graves chuckles darkly,”  We should join our families, Seraphina.  It would bring our deceased parents much joy.”

“And bring me nothing but despair,”  Seraphina scoffs,  “No thank you.”

“Alas, my poor broken heart,”  Graves says in jest.

Seraphina rolls her eyes.  “Have your secretary soothe it for you.”

Graves looks away, a light flush settling on his cheeks.  “It’s not like that between us.”  By God, he thought he was subtle in his feelings.

Credence saved his sanity.  He saved his life.  Graves’ dominant hand will be useless for the rest of his life, and he needs Credence to write for him, but he also needs him for many more, less noble reasons.

“You father left him money and experience enough that he could start his own business.”  She points out, unhelpfully.  “Yet he remains with you.”

“He is loyal to the family.”  He argues.  “He thinks he owes us a debt.”

She scoffs, her hands on her hips.  “You have known him only two months but, Percival, you look at him as though he sets the sun in the sky every morning.”

“My father loved him as a son,”  he says, weakly.

“Aye, he did, but that does not mean you have to.”  She taps a finger against her jaw, expression pensive.  “You walk straighter when you’re with him,”  she says, and he knows he does.  Nothing but laudanum helps with the physical pain, but Credence reassures the mental.

Credence reads to him whenever he feels particularly melancholic.  Graves enjoys tales of great naval battles, especially from the Napoleonic Wars.  It was during one of these readings that Credence mentioned similarities between the loss of Lord Nelson’s arm and Graves’ disability.  It’s a flattering, bittersweet comparison.  Lord Nelson was the greatest admiral in British history, Graves was but a captain.

In his tenacity Lord Nelson continued his career, despite his extensive injuries.  Graves is no Lord Nelson.  He cannot bear to step on a ship, let alone lead a crew without being reminded of the disaster that was his last command.  Credence flatters him with kindness, but he is undeserving of respect.

The floorboards creak, sending a cascade of dust floating from the ceiling, drawing him out of his thoughts.  He frowns at the white plaster chips coating the desk.  As the smallest of the Picquery family holdings the Winchester house is infrequently used, except during wakes, since the family mausoleum lies on the edge of town.  The house is much too small, and old enough that it does not have indoor plumbing.  Considering that the only memories Graves has of it involve death, it is only to be expected that he feels uncomfortable within its walls.

“This house is falling apart.”  Seraphina glares at the rafters.   “Too cold, and the walls so thin I can hear the servants’ gossip.”

It was built centuries before the Treaty of Union was signed, and is one of the oldest houses in Winchester.  It is definitely the one that leans the most onto the street, the jettied floors giving the impression that it is in danger of falling over at any moment.

“Perhaps you should have it demolished?  It is yours now, you could rebuild,”  Graves suggests as the floors creak again.  He wonders who could possibly be on the third floor.  Only the staff are allowed upstairs, and the last he saw, they all broke for supper at sunset.

She casts a displeased look around—from the stain that seems even bigger than before, to the many cracks in the plaster.  “I’ve always hated it.”

Pounding thunders from above like the reverb of canonfire.  It fills the head in a way that no sound ever should.  Graves reaches for his cane, pulling it close.  Since the incident, he’s been jumpy.  Afraid of anything suspicious, and even more terrified of fire.  The cane has become a comfort.  After weeks of confinement to a hospital bed, it allows him mobility.

The furious pounding halts abruptly, mid step.  It’s quiet enough that he hears the click of Seraphina swallowing.

“What was—”

The scream takes them by surprise.  It tears through the house, piercing like a lance.  He fumbles with his cane, dropping it so it clatters on the stained tile.  The scream echos down the corridor, disappearing into the darkness like a ghost.

“Stay here,”  Seraphina demands with pursed lips—as if she has the right to order him about— and disappears out the door.

“Like hell.”  He snatches up his cane, aching back protesting, and wobbles after her.

Dragging his bum leg in a way that would have his surgeon in tears, he makes it into the halls.  Fighting his body down the long, candlelit corridor, another scream meets him halfway.  It comes from his right, and he takes the turn in the endless hallway.  He’s sweating from exertion and pain by the time he presses into the crowd of people gathered around the small library.  Their expressions range from terrified to worried, and it has Graves pushing them aside, in order to assess the danger.  He expected a guest to have injured themselves, maybe collapsed and broken something.  What he sees instead has his cane falling from his grip.

Graves limps into the room, reaching for the writhing figure on the rug.  Credence—good, kind, precious Credence—twists, his body shifting into contortions that should be impossible.  His back bends, hands clenching at the carpet beneath him.

Mr. Kowalski stands by with eyes so wide whiteness surrounds his irises.

“What did you do?!”  Graves shouts, dropping to his knees in front of Credence’s agony.  A stray limb lashes out, clipping him on the side of the face.  The pain is deep and stinging.

“We were talking, but he trailed off mid sentence,”  Mr. Kowalski says in a rush, the front of his suit is wrinkled, like Credence grabbed it on his way down,  “His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed and started seizing.”

Credence releases a terrible yowl and the carpet tears beneath his hands.

“By the Lord above, call a priest!”  A red-haired woman shouts, but Graves pays her no mind.  He had seen this infliction before in his men.  It is a medical disease, managed by the administration of bromide—not an exorcism.  He just never knew Credence suffered from it.

“Don’t hold him down,”  Queenie Goldstein advises, kneeling at his side,  “You’ll only hurt him.”

He wants to touch Credence, to pull him close, to give him comfort, but he knows he cannot.  He’s a captain watching the inevitable sinking of his ship, helpless to do anything.

Then, as if he has been frozen, Credence stops seizing, he goes deathly still.  Graves’ heart catches in his throat.  He reaches for that long, pale neck, dreading that he will find no pulse beneath his fingers.

The moment he makes contact with his skin, Credence throws his head back and screams.  Graves falls back as the house shrieks around them.  It shakes beneath their feet, dusty books diving like lemmings from the shelves.  That dreadful stomping starts up again, but there’s no third floor above the library, only a roof too steep for anyone to stand upon.  A woman shrieks, a man faints, but the stomping grows and grows in ferocity until it seems it can grow no louder.

Then, like the calm in the eye of a storm, it stops.  Loose papers drift like snow, moving about in the breeze from an open window.  Ladies fan themselves desperately, some appear to be enjoying the spectacle.

Cautiously, Graves leans back in, tracing a shaking finger along the side of Credence’s sweaty face.  His eyes fly wide open, beautiful lashes as dark as ever.  Graves’ breath catches.

Nothing but icy whiteness lies within their depths.

***

_Eleven months later_

Percival Graves holds the old letter in his good hand, the other lies limp and useless in his lap.  He reads, and the memories return as if they happened only yesterday.  Credence sent it a year past, his cursive clear and neat.  Graves read this letter so often while he was recovering in hospice that the paper is permanently creased.  It had arrived at an opportune time.  Just as he lost everything he had spent his entire career working towards, he then lost his father.

“What are you looking at?”  Credence asks, walking into the study, yet another letter in hand.  It must have just been delivered.  They’ve been opening and answering correspondences the entire morning.  Graves is tired of it, and he isn’t even the one doing the writing.

He ignores the question and tucks the letter back in his desk.  Nodding to the new letter, the seal already broken, he asks,  “What is that about?”  Months ago, Credence waited for Graves to break the wax seals.  Now he takes the initiative.  Though he has yet to reply without Graves’ dictation, letting him feel like he still has a purpose.  Graves is Lord in name only, he has no eye for business, not like Credence does.

“It’s from the Goldsteins.”  Credence slips onto the corner of his desk, legs nudging Graves’ own.  His usual seat.  It’s kept free of papers, just for him.  “They’re requesting our help,”  he says, biting his lip with a frown, the picture of uneasiness.

Credence is never nervous when discussing business dealings, a result of years spent learning personally from Graves’ father.  While Graves was busy commanding grand naval vessels in her Majesty’s Navy, Credence learned how to maintain and expand his family’s wealth.  He is nervous about one thing only, and frankly, that one thing makes Graves nervous as well.  He rests his hand on Credence’s knee, rubbing absent minded circles, comforting both of them.  “Well, go on, what do they want?”  he asks with some trepidation.

Credence says nothing, just unfolds the letter and hands it over.  Skimming over Queenie’s neat writing in silence, he purses his lips.  He lifts his eyes from the paper, meeting Credence’s.

“Are you sure about this?”  Graves would never make Credence do anything, but if he does not want to help the Goldsteins, he would have made that abundantly clear.

“They’re our friends.”

“They can move to a different house.  Or they can do what Seraphina did, they can demolish it and rebuild.”  Pessimistic, but true.  Graves has no desire whatsoever to put Credence in danger, and even less desire to repeat the incident at Seraphina’s house.  Graves has only felt that helpless a few times in his life, and it is not pleasant.

“I forced the spirit to pass on, that’s the only reason they were able to bring down Lady Picquery’s house.”  Credence shakes his head.  “I want to help them.”

Graves looks at him, really looks at him.  He’s stubborn and steely, and if there’s one thing he knows about Credence, it’s that nothing can change his mind once it’s set.  Some would see it as a bad trait, but his determination was half of what Graves fell in love with in the first place.  Credence anchors him, he keeps him steady, and gives him purpose.  All of which has helped with his recovery this past year.

“Very well, have the footmen prepare the coach.”

Credence smiles, and runs a hand down the side of Graves’ cheek.  Like being caressed by velvet, his touch brings comfort.  The heavy gold and onyx ring he gifted Credence feels warm and smooth against his skin.  He slips off the desk like a whisper, and leaves the study.  As Graves tucks the letter into his desk with the others, his cheek burns.

***

The coach rumbles along the London cobblestones, the heavy morning fog bathing the city in greys.  Credence sits opposite on the narrow seat.  He stares out the window, holding the curtain back, revealing the wet streets.  The gentlemen officers Graves once traveled with prefered to close coach curtains while in London.  Doing so keeps out the choleric stench, and keeps the eye away from any unfortunates who might pass by.  Credence, however, grew up these streets before he was brought into the care of his family.  Graves wonders how he feels when he looks upon the city.  Has it changed to his eye, or is London forever and eternally the same?

“We have never properly discussed my gift,”  Credence lets the curtain fall closed, and the coach darkens, but for a sliver of light that falls upon his neck,  “It is frightening, yes, but it helps.”

Watching the shadows play with the angular features of Credence’s face, Graves says,  “We still know nothing about it.  The priest preached of fire and brimstone, and the spiritualist was vague.”  Months ago Graves hired two experts in the occult to examine Credence.  The priest brought forth his holy water and his cross, reading aloud from his bible, but found nothing otherworldly.  The spiritualist lit a cloying incense and performed a séance, but her ghosts whispered nothing of worth.  For all intents and purposes, Credence is a perfectly normal human being, save for the fact that he can commune with the beyond.

“We know enough to help Tina and Queenie, that’s all that matters,”  Credence says.

Graves takes Credence’s hand, pulling it to his chest.  “I fear the damnation of your soul,”  he confesses in a low whisper.

Graves has never considered himself a religious man.  His father was not, even as his mother was.  She died in his youth, but he has vivid memories of her balancing him on her knee, reading parables from her book of prayer.  Her tales of lepers and divine punishment frightened him, but she seemed to enjoy them.  For a long time he thought her morbidity was the reason for their family’s exclusion from society.  Only after she passed on and the dinner invitations began arriving, did his father sit him down and explain that her Irish blood and Catholicism was the real reason.

“If using my gift damns me, then I’m afraid it’s much too late for my soul.”  Credence smiles sadly, pink lips pulling at the corners.  “I might as well help people, while I’m still on this earth.  Besides, you’ll be with me,”  Credence leans closer, dark hair falling over his eyes as he murmurs, “I’m always safe with you.”

Graves runs his fingers along the stretched scars that have been with Credence for most of his life.  They remind him of the scars that cover his dominant arm, though his are much younger.  While lying in bed together one night, Credence had confessed that as a boy his mother cut them into his skin, hoping to bleed the devil out of him.  When it didn’t work, she cast him aside onto the streets, where the Graves housekeeper—a woman of a most generous disposition—brought him into the family to serve as the steward’s room-boy.

Graves lifts his hand and presses a kiss to one such mark.  Credence smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.  For as long as he shall live, Credence will bear the silvery remnants of his mother’s prejudice.

They arrive to find the Goldsteins waiting, trunks and suitcases already packed and ready to go.  The sisters themselves stand far from the house as the coachman loads their luggage.  Queenie is the first to spot their arrival and waves excitedly.

Graves lets Credence climb out first.  Tina helps him down, pulling him into a quick embrace, uncaring of who might see.  They’ve know each other a long time.  His father used to bring Credence along to meetings with the Goldsteins’ representatives, and they quickly became friends.  When the sisters came of age, inheriting the business, their familiarity with Credence ensured a continued relationship with the Graves family.

After an exchange of pleasantries and how-d'ye-dos, Tina crosses her arms over her chest and says quite seriously, “It started the day we moved in.  There was a scent like burning wood when we first arrived, but after looking around and finding no source, we put it out of our minds.”

Graves studies the house as the sisters speak.  It’s a handsome building, four stories tall, bearing a whitewashed Georgian facade.  Neoclassical pillars support a small balcony on the second floor, barely large enough for two to stand upon.  The house must have been beautiful once.  Now the windows are grimy, having gone a long while without being cleaned.  The attached neighbours—who according to the Goldsteins’ letter are not plagued by the spirit, despite sharing a wall on either side—have taken much better care of their properties.  Their windows gleam, and their walls are stark white.  Brown brick peeks through on the Goldsteins’ house, years of rain having partially washed away the whiting.

“Eventually the scent changed,”  Queenie continues and Graves looks to her,  “It was the middle of the night, and it smelled like burning hair.  I went downstairs and found the ballroom fireplace alight.”  She purses her lips.  “You must understand, lighting it is troublesome, and we much prefer the coal stoves.”  She casts a worried glance at the house, tugging on a lock blond hair, a nervous tic.  “I’d show it to you, but I do not wish to go back inside.”

“I understand,”  Credence reassures, patting her on her gloved hand.  She smiles, her eyes crinkling with fondness.

“She thought I lit it and singed my hair in the process,”  Tina says,  “When she scolded me at breakfast, I knew something was wrong.  We have yet to hire staff, and if neither of us did it...”

“It must have been something else,”  Credence concludes, expression grim.

“The incidents only became more frightening the longer we stayed,”  Tina says with a shudder, chewing on her bottom lip,  “The animals were the worst.”

“Animals?”  Graves asks in surprise.  They did not mention that in their letter.

“Yes,”  Tina nods,  “Whatever is in that house has been leaving them all over the place.  I tripped over a rat.”

“Rats are not uncommon in London,”  Graves says.

“It was dead, charred, and still smoking when I found it.”

Graves coughs, the bitter taste of wood ash resting heavy on his tongue.  “That is rather odd.”  He despises the smell of burnt meat.  It brings to mind memories he would rather forget.  Graves would never abandon Credence to go on alone, but this house will stretch him to his limits.  He knows not what lies within, and dreads to find out.

When the sisters’ coach leaves, rattling down the cobbled street, he asks Credence,  “Does this sound like anything you’ve dealt with before?”

Credence’ shakes his head, lips pursed in a thin line.  “No.”

***

Graves places their bags by the base of the bed in the guest room.  Tina was right, the house smells of burning hair, but it is faint.  It’s a scent difficult to forget, and one all too easy to remember.

With his hands on his hips, he looks around, taking in the inch of dust on the furniture.  Tina and Queenie did not have time to clean before the house frightened them away.  The sheer amount hints that it has been unoccupied for a very long time before their purchase.  Only the bed linens are free of dust: one of the sisters must have prepared it for them.  A portrait frame sits on a nearby dressing table.  Curious, he picks it up, swiping his thumb across the greyed surface, but the dirt remains adhered to the oil paint.  All he can make out are blonde curls and the curve of a small ear.

Credence appears, sliding his arms around his waist, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.  Graves puts the portrait back where he found it.  He leans into the cradle of Credence’s arms as they sway ever so gently.  “Are you alright?”  Credence asks, fingers running along the buttons of his waistcoat.

All of their close friends know of their relationship.  It’s a well kept secret, but rumours have a tendency to spread regardless.  Graves doesn’t mind that he isn’t invited to society parties.  He didn’t enjoy them before he was a social pariah, and he wouldn’t enjoy them now.  Waking up beside Credence every morning is worth every cruel rumour whispered at their expense.

“With you here, I’ll always be alright.”  Graves spins in Credence’s arms until they face each other.  He stands on his toes and presses a kiss to his cheek, noses nudging as he pulls back.

“If you say so.”  Credence hums, dipping in and kissing him lightly on the mouth.  Against his lips, he murmurs,  “Would you join me as I look around?”

Graves quirks a brow.  “Right down to business, I see.  In that case.”  He withdraws from Credence embrace and kneels in front of the bags, grimacing as his joint creaks.  His leg has healed for the most part, but his joints act up whenever the temperature falls, and how the temperature has fallen.  The interior of the house is so much colder than the exterior.  There must be a leak somewhere.

Opening a bag, he pulls out a cross, and a perfume bottle filled with a tincture of herbs and spices recommended by the priest and spiritualist respectively.

Credence frowns at the items.  “I don’t think that is necessary.”

“Humour me.”  Graves says, laying the items on the floor.  “An old man with no abilities of my own must make do with what I have at my disposal.”

“I’m at your disposal,”  Credence says, his tone is petulant but his pout is a delight.  It makes Graves want to kiss him again.

“Romantic,”  Graves acknowledges,  “But romance will not protect me from an angry spirit.”

“I doubt lavender and wormwood will either,”  Credence says.

Graves rolls his eye, tucking the cross under his arm as he climbs to his feet.  “Be quiet you.  The spiritualist said I need to believe for it to work.”  He twirls the bottle, wondering how he’s supposed to hold it and operate the pump with only one hand.

Credence scrutinizes the cross and bottle, but says nothing more on the subject.

The floorboards creak as they wander through the old house.  Cobwebs and dirt cover everything, but it is a nice house.  With a little elbow grease and an exorcism or two, it would make a nice place to raise a family.  He supposes this is where Queenie was planning on living with Mr. Kowalski after their marriage, though the haunting may have changed her mind.

The fireplace in the kitchen is rather small.  The hearth is swept clean of ashes, a rusted iron spit installed into the firebox.  Like the rest of the house, it hasn’t been used in a long time.  Coal sits in a container by a well used cast iron stove.

Credence runs his fingers along the surfaces in the kitchen, from the heavy preparation table, to cracked tile counters, to worn knobs on cabinets with flaking paint, to pots suspended from hooks in the ceiling, but nothing catches his attention.  Graves moves to flank him, placing the cross on the counter.  After a bit of wrangling, he holds the perfume bottle between his elbow and stomach.  Squeezing the pump, he sprays the concoction a few times around the room.  Waiting for some sort of reaction turns out to be an exercise in futility.  Nothing happens and nothing is revealed.  No ghostly figures—as the spiritualist claimed—no spectres, so spirits.  Nothing.

The concoction drifts like fog to the floor.  Credence rolls his eyes, he says,  “Come on, leave that behind, we should inspect the ballroom.”

Sighing in defeat Graves deposits the bottle on the counter, but tucks the cross into the back of his trousers.  The concoction might have been a failure, but the cross may yet work.

He follows behind Credence, the stairwell too dark, and too narrow to traverse side by side.  The plaster flakes beneath his fingers as Graves touches the wall to keep steady.  There are no windows this deep in the house, and even if there were, the ones he had seen were covered in a thick layer of London grime.  It’s an eerie sort of darkness, the shadows long and unyielding.  An uneasiness settles in his bones, and he treads carefully.  He can’t shake the feeling that if he doesn’t step in the exact right place, the stairs will crack open, and he’ll fall to his death.

“This must be it,”  Credence says grimly, stopping outside a pair of grand doors at the top of the stairs.  Together, they swing them open to an impossibly large room.  It’s no wonder the sisters purchased the house, despite its flaws.  To have such a room within a house in London—where open space can be rather hard to find—is nothing short of a blessing.

Crystal chandeliers hang far above, the remains of tallow candles melted in their holders.  The room is wallpapered with a design of viridian vines and pink roses, dulled by time and exposure to light from the tall windows on the north side, leading out to the balcony Graves saw before.  Floorspace stretches out beneath them, the room thin but long, encompassing the entire length of the house.  With the wood stained a deep russet, the floorboards interlock in a herringbone pattern.

The air is stale, and the space nearest to the windows is covered in a deep filth.  Black dust, long dead leaves, and London’s infamous silt mar a once beautiful room.  Someone must have left a window cracked open for years, though gauzy cornflower curtains cover them now.  The fabric looks too clean to be anything but new.

The furniture is shielded by stained sheets, and as Credence tugs on the end of one, it slips to the floor in a cloud of dust motes, revealing a settee upholstered in a luxurious brocade.  The design is long out of style, but the settee appears new—frozen in time while everything else aged.

“My great aunt had a set like this,”  Graves remarks, as Credence goes over to the north end.  He opens a creaking window, letting in some much needed fresh air.  “Her taste was fairly baroque.”  His great aunt Edna lived as she died—garishly and in debt, a woman truly of her era.

Graves moves to study the fireplace.  Compared to the one they saw in the kitchen, it is massive.  Before the coal stoves were installed it was likely used to heat the entire house, though Graves doesn’t know why the kitchen fireplace wasn’t built larger.  Surely it would be much more effective to have a larger fireplace to cook, and smaller ones for heating.  Hardly two pots could hang from the kitchen spit, but this firebox is large enough to roast a deer.  Ducking his head, he peers inside.  The back is blackened with years worth of soot, and the space over the throat hangs deep in shadows.  Somehow, he doesn’t like the look of it, though everything seems in its proper place.  Credence calls for him, tearing him away.

A ebony box lies open on a now uncovered table.  Credence bends over it, his hand moving in circular motions.  The cranking of a gear, and when Credence pulls back, faint tinkling music plays from the box.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”  Credence says wondrously.

Graves recently purchased a phonograph, recommended by Seraphina.  Its music is nothing like this, nor is it like a night out at the opera.  The sound goes scratchy as the record disks wear, and the notes jump.  It is imperfect, but within the privacy of their rooms, when it is just Credence and him alone, spinning in each other’s arms, it’s beautiful.  They dance together almost every night, swaying to the scratches, their feet making love to the jumps.

Credence holds out his hand in offering, and Graves takes it.

The music is too faint to cover the click of their shoes on the floor.  Credence wraps his arm around his waist, as Graves taught him, leading the dance as he offered it.  He moves into position, and Graves follows, immediately knowing the dance Credence has chosen.  They whirl in a full circle, gliding about the room.  As birds of a feather, the steps come as second nature.  Credence’s eyes are like glittering diamonds as he playfully twirls Graves, his oft so serious mouth cracks an infrequent smile, just for him.  In return, a twin smile spreads over his own face.  Credence’s hand is so very warm in his, tucked close to their pressed bodies.

Even as the music box slows to a stop, they continue dancing to the music playing in their heads.  They are seamless in their steps, as they are seamless in their hearts.

When the dance is complete, their chests heave in exhaustion.  Standing together in front of the quiet music box, Credence smiles like a promise, the hand he has on the small of Graves’ back trails up to his neck.  He leans down, wanting for a kiss, and Graves gives one to him.  Cupping his precious face, Graves kisses him deeply and slowly, indulging in the press of their mouths, in their flawless dance, in the embrace of their bodies—stomach to stomach, heart to heart.

***

They spend the rest of the day exploring the house, ascending back to the third floor, where the bedrooms lie, then to the fourth floor, even dustier and likely unused within the last occupancy.  Credence senses nothing out of the ordinary, which seems to throw him for a loop.  He mutters to himself, his mood going sour as the day goes on.  Dinner is nothing but him somberly poking at the meal Graves so graciously prepared, their conversation stilted.

After the dishes are washed and put away, Graves considers returning to the ballroom and suggesting another dance.  God knows it would so Credence a world of good.  He throws that idea aside as he lets out an impressive yawn, the day finally catching up.  He’s exhausted, and likely Credence is too.

Their bed calls to them.  Credence ascends the two flights of stairs, a candle in hand, leading the way slow and careful.

The four-poster looks like sweet relief, and Graves sags as he sits on the edge, removing his shoes.  Credence sets the candle down silently, and goes to light the stove.  The room is icy cold, his breath frosting in the air.  It’s liable to leach away all his body heat in the few moments it takes to slip out of his clothes, into his flannel nightwear.

Climbing into the bed, he pulls the sheets up to his chin, shivering unbearably.  Credence putters around the room, settling their bags so they do not trip come morning, then changing himself.  All Graves wants to do is pull him close so they can both be warm.

The candlelight flickers, drawing his eye to it.  It illuminates the portrait on the dressing table, revealing the paint strokes he could not make out during the day.  A gentle chin, tumbling curls, and young girl with a faint smile.  Her eyes are a glittering black like Credence’s.

A creeping sort of feeling crawls all along his back, prickling his skin until he shivers, prompting him to pull the covers even higher.

“Percy,”  Credence breathes, and Graves looks at him.

With a hand braced against the dressing table, Credence stares with wide eyes and a face paler than usual at the darkness that looms over Graves’ shoulder,  “Don’t turn around, my love.”

Graves freezes, swallowing heavily.  A hideous feeling slides down the back of his neck, a hunger, deep and dark.  It’s far different from the anticipation of naval battle, and even further from the horrors of the aftermath.  It’s the dread of once again being pinned beneath a supporting beam, fire consuming his cabin, licking like the flames of hell at his heels.

Credence trembles as he moves around the edge of the bed, candle held aloft like a shield.  His bare feet pad along the rough-hewn floorboards.  Graves eyes follow, until Credence goes where he cannot see—unless he does what was expressly forbidden of him.  He waits, breath caught in his throat.  He will listen to Credence, and he won’t turn around, no matter how much he wants to.  Light flickers along the walls, and the only sound he hears, besides the creaking floor beneath Credence’s feet is the racing of his own heart.

“Credence,”  Graves says, trying to sound calm, but failing miserably.  He shakes dreadfully, pushing his hair back from his face.  He begs,  “By God, Credence, please come to bed.”

With a deflating breath, Credence emerges into Graves’ view, and he lets out a sigh of relief.  Credence’s eyes dart about, searching, but whatever he is looking for, he doesn’t seem to see.  Graves holds the covers open for him, and he climbs in, setting the candle on the bedside table.  Credence presses into the cradle of Graves’ arms, his body heat going a long way towards warming them both.

“We should buy some new disks for the phonograph,”  Graves suggests in a whisper, lips moving against Credence’s skin.  The mundane talk helping to distract them from what lurks in the shadows behind his back.

“When we return home,”  Credence agrees with a promise that they will survive this, as he nestles closer on the bed.

They leave the candle burning, until the oppressive aura fades to nothing.  A few moments later, a draft blows in from the window, and the candle goes out with a hiss.


	2. Chapter 2

At first he thinks it’s Credence calling his name, but the voice is too light, too high.  Graves wakes from a deep slumber to a young girl in her Sunday’s finest, shrouded from head to toe in moonlight.  She stands in the doorway, delicate white flowers tucked into the braids pulling her hair away from her face.  Her dress is of a bright yellow silk: her father would never clothe his precious daughter in slave-picked cotton.  Graves stares, lost for words.  She hasn’t looked like this—this young, this carefree—in over thirty years.  Peering at him with black eyes, lashing blinking, she rocks back and forth in her shined shoes.  They make no sound on the floor, how could they?  She’s not real.  She cannot be.

Graves lifts Credence’s arm from his waist, sitting up in bed, shivering as the sheets slip off his shoulders.  Credence mumbles to himself and turns on his other side, tugging the sheets as he goes.

“Seraphina?”  Graves whispers to the air between them.  “Sera?”

She pulls a flower from her hair, holding it out in offering as the serpent did the fruit.  Spinning it between her forefinger and thumb, she bounces on the balls of her feet, so full of energy, so full of life.  This is how she was before her mother died, before society beat her down, and robbed her of her childhood.  Graves remembers that yellow dress.  She had so many other clothes, but she wore that dress every chance she could.  The lace adorning the collar was painstakingly made by her mother.  It was imperfect and awkwardly crocheted, but Seraphina loved it all the same.

 _Percival, Percival, would you run through the heather with me?_   _Run with me, race me to the wood’s edge.  We shall see who is faster._

Credence slumbers on, blissfully unaware of the spectre that stands before them.

“You’re not real,”  Graves breathes.  He says it, and he knows it to be true.  Seraphina’s still alive, living far outside of London.  Graves misses her, but she’s always loved Yorkshire more than she ever loved him.  This is the spirit playing tricks on him, trying to separate him from Credence, to get him away from the only person who can protect him.

The spirit steps into the room, and he climbs out of bed without thinking.  Reaching for the robe he draped over a chair, he slips it on.  He cannot feel the cold anymore, the chill seeping through the floor, the light patter of rain on the windowsill, all that matters is the hand Seraphina holds out for him.  Credence mutters in his sleep, but Graves barely hears him.  Suddenly, the most important thing in the world is to take her hand and let her lead him wherever he needs to go.

“Hmm…  Percy?”  Credence sighs, but the world falls away as he slips his hand into hers, and the flower she holds out to him spins in his eyes.  The bed creaks, the sheets rustle.  “Percy, what are you doing?”

She tugs him from the room, faster than should be possible of a small child, and the door quietly shuts behind them.  A moment, then the knob rattles, the door shakes.  Credence’s pounding fists buzz in his ears as if it comes from a dream.  He rolls his shoulders, the sound of Credence’s distress fading away, forgotten.  Seraphina soundlessly skips on, and Graves follows her through the dark corridors.  He cannot see anything around him, but it doesn’t matter, Seraphina glows like a beacon.  She doesn’t light the house around her, it’s a glow that comes from deep within her, enough that he isn’t afraid.  She’s leading him somewhere, and she’s never failed him before.

Their families would summer in Lakeland when they were children, the mountains were high, but the lowlands boggy and dangerous.  It was all too easy to get a leg caught in muck stinking of rotting vegetation.  All too easy to break a bone, to be exposed to the elements, to tumble down a fell and snap one’s neck.  Most visitors prefered swimming in the meres, but Seraphina had a special propensity for running through the moorlands, one she shared with Graves.  Their fathers demanded they be careful, but they never were.  They would play in one area, then sneak away to another without telling the servant meant to be watching them.

It was luck, and Seraphina’s quick thinking that averted any unfortunate accidents—unlike so many others, bodies lost and entombed forever in unrelenting peat.  His mother used to say that the moors could swallow anything—people, animals, even whole castles—given enough time.

Graves trembles, and he does not know why.  It feels as though his muscles are locked in place, and he vibrates in his creaking bones.  He follows Seraphina down the stairs, leaning forward with each step he takes.  Careful and precise in his movements, just as he was when he wandered the moorlands with Seraphina.  Her fingers are warm—too warm—but he holds them still, even as they begin to burn.  She blazes, her own little sun, his familiar guide.

At the top of the stairs comes a terrible, splintering crash, but he pays it no mind.  Seraphina stops in the middle of a dark hallway, in front of a door.  He had barely noticed it in passing during the day, now it fills all his thoughts, all his motivations.

He must open this door.

“Percy!”  Credence screams from far above.  To his ears, his name sounds as a whisper.  Graves drops Seraphina’s hand, he aches, a feeling like spider bites prickles all along his skin.  Seraphina says nothing, simply slips something into his pocket, no longer holding her flower.  She opens the door for him, and it creaks ominously.  A deep relentless darkness lies beyond the threshold, but she gestures for him to step forward, to be embraced by it.

“Is that what you want?”  He asks dreamily, and she nods solemnly, eyes so black and soulless.

“Don’t listen to it!”  Credence cries.  Graves vaguely hears him, he’s so far away.

_Walk carefully, the path is thorny and full of pitfalls.  Don’t miss a single step._

“Shall I hold your hand?”  He asks, and he is a child again, hair curling behind his ears in the damp grey morning.  The moors lay spread out before them, rolling howes and shallow tarns, stretching far past the horizon: their playground.  The bracken and heather sag with dew, his shoes already ruined with mud as his playmate looks back, searching for him in the heavy mist.  She has climbed this fell before, he has not, he had best listen to every word she says.

_Walk, Percival._

He does.  He steps into that aching maw, and the door slams shut behind him.

The dark is all encompassing.  It presses into him, sliding down his chest, a weight against his sternum.  He walks carefully, one foot in front of the other as he ventures forth.  A desperate pounding sounds from behind him.  Credence is screaming:  Graves thinks for one brief moment, then all thoughts fly from his mind.

The floor is ice beneath his curling toes, and he draws in a breath.  Seraphina is gone now, but her instructions are clear.  He takes hold of the dusty bannister and descends.  One step, then a shift of his weight, another step, always on the edge, hugging the wall.  If the path crumbles beneath him, he can grab for the prickly heather before he tumbles to his death.  Uneasiness settles in his stomach, but he walks on, even as that uneasiness escalates to full blown panic.  He tries to turn back, to return to Credence, but he finds that his feet are not his own.  He tries to stop, but the weight in his chest grows until he can bear it no longer and he’s forced to take another step.

When he finally touches flagstones, it feels as though he’s walking on a frozen lake, his bare feet sticking to the stone, as warm flesh sticks to cold metal.  He wanders for so long, so far into the darkness, he thinks he's losing his mind.  The cellar cannot be this big, it cannot stretch this far into the underground, it simply cannot.  His breath comes out loud and shaky, though it doesn't drown out the sound of something else, something that doesn’t belong.  A shaft of dull light hangs in the distance, dust motes drifting in the air.  He has no idea where it comes from, but he knows where it goes.

The creature’s breathing is wet as the rasping of nails on a slate.  Its back moves up and down, a weighty bellow, melted flesh and blood red muscle throbbing.  Graves wants to scream in horror, but his mouth is clenched shut.  He wants to cry, but his eyes are wide and dry.  He wants to run, but his feet move him forward still.  The creature shivers, as though it senses him coming.  It’s a corpse, a skinless monstrosity, but it breathes.

He’s thrust back in time, sitting in a dinghy, clothes burnt to pieces, hanging by threads to his shoulders.  His arm is a melted mess of flesh, and he hunches over it, clutching it protectively to his chest as his men row.  The sea burns around their all too wooden boat.  The blackened skeleton of his lost ship crests in the waves, burning lumps of flotsam drifting as far as the eye can see.  A shout, and his midshipman reaches for something in the water.  Hauling one of those lumps over the side of the dinghy, it tilts dangerously and water splashes over their soaked feet.  Graves opens his mouth, terrified and furious, they cannot afford to carry any unnecessary weight—they’re already in danger of sinking.  Demanding his midshipman throw overboard whatever wreckage he found, he startles when the lump breathes, and Graves realizes he isn’t looking at flotsam or debris.  He’s looking at a man.

In the cellar, the corpse turns its head, flesh pitted with deep bleeding wounds.  Graves stares into empty sockets, eyes melted away to smoldering embers.  He drops to his knees, ice running through his veins.

To the sea again, and Graves stares on in shock as his midshipman wraps the man in a blanket, lips pulled thin, knowing it is too late.  They bring him to shore, but the moment they pull him from the boat onto the sandy beach, he gives a single expiring sigh, and dies.

 _Bring him to me,_  the corpse whispers, and all the breath leaves Graves’ body in a single shudder.

***

“Percy!  Oh God, Percy, wake up!”  He's grabbed by the shoulders and shaken so violently he feels his brain rattling about in his skull.  He opens his eyes, wondering exactly who is assaulting him, and is slapped clear across the face.

“Fuck,”  Graves’ jaw clicks, and he moans in pain, opening his eyes.

“Percy!”  Credence stares down at him, worry scrunching up his features.  Groaning, Graves sits up, Credence helping him.  His eyes water from the slap and he blinks rapidly, chasing away the tears.  Soon, he figures the moisture in his eyes is not all that mortifying since Credence is crying openly.

“Don’t do that again,”  Credence says, voice high and tight.  He sounds so scared.  Graves did that to him.

He gingerly touches the cheek where Credence slapped him, but pulls back when his fingers sting instead.  He looks at his hand, the skin is bright red, and pulls uncomfortably over his knuckles.

“Be careful,”  Credence says, grimacing,  “You were burnt.”

“I…”  He trails off, remembering the scorching heat from Seraphina’s fingers.  Or, not Seraphina.  He casts a look around, finding himself in an unfamiliar dark room, lit only by the candelabra at his side, cold flagstones lying beneath him.  They’re still in the cellar.  He shivers, conscious of the sick churning in his stomach.  Where did that creature go?  It could not have disappeared, it looked so real—his worst memory come alive.

Credence watches him in concern, rubbing a hand on his back, trying to soothe him.  Graves doesn’t want to explain what he saw.  Credence barely knows anything about that day, Graves only told him the basics, never the gorey details.  He wanted to protect Credence, but he also didn’t want to remember.  He grinds his teeth together.  The spirit forced him to relive one of the most horrifying moments of his life.

He shifts, and something in his robe clatters on the stone.  Credence frowns, and as Graves reaches into his pocket, wincing in pain, pulling out a tarnished key, the frown deepens.  The key feels cool in his burnt hand.  The spirit slipped this into his pocket, he remembers, he thought it was a flower, but it was this.  It’s a clunky iron piece, spotted with bits of burgundy rust.  It looks as though it was forgotten for a very long time.

Credence holds out his hand, and Graves gives it to him.  “Where did you get this?”  Credence asks, his voice a little too casual.

“The spirit,”  Graves says, then adds,  “It gave it to me.”

Credence’s lips purse into a baffled frown.  He looks so confused, exactly how confused Graves feels.  “Why?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.  I’m not the one who can talk to ghosts,”  Graves points out.

“Everyone can talk to ghosts,”  Credence says simply, handing the key back to Graves,  “They conceal their true selves to most, but I can see through them, to what they really are.”

“What was it then?”  Graves asks with some trepidation.  “What did you see?”

Credence shivers, a haunted expression sliding over his face.  Ignoring the question, even as Graves sends him a pleading look, he goes to pick up the candelabra, the fire flickering off the planes of his angular face.  “We should head upstairs.”

“Credence…”  Graves says softly.

“Leave it be, Percy,”  Credence says irritably, then, a pause.  “You don’t want to know.”

He follows after Credence to the stairwell, looking around the cellar, it’s not nearly as large as he thought it was in the pitch black, but it’s still rather big.  It must extend far beyond into the neighbour’s properties, though it’s not shared by them since there’s only one set of stairs.  When he starts climbing, he glances off to the side, noticing a inconspicuous wooden door tucked away in a corner.  An iron plate sits above the handle, a keyhole right in the middle of it.  A few more steps, and the ceiling blocks his view.

Graves slides his hand into his pocket, wrapping his fingers around the cold iron key.  It soothes the burn on his hand, until the aches fades away.

***

A squat orange sits on the table before him.  Graves ignores it in favour of looking up at Credence sitting on the other side, pots and pans hanging over their heads.  Behind Credence lies the door to the yard, the only place on the property they haven’t yet searched.  “What did you mean?”  He asks.

“Hmm?”  Credence hums, piercing his orange rind with a nail, sending a fragrant mist into the air.

“When you said that everyone can talk to ghosts,”  he clarifies,  “What did you mean?”

“Exactly what I said,”  Credence says, skinning the fruit so the peel comes off in a perfect, unbroken spiral.  He’s had a lot of practice.  Credence loves oranges, and they’re so easy to find in the colder seasons, flying off ships returning from the colonies.  “The spirits stay for a reason, you know.  They tether themselves to humanity.  If they couldn’t communicate with its denizens, doing so would be rather pointless.”

“The ghost in Seraphina’s house?”

“Lady Picquery’s poltergeist was polluting that house, rotting it from the inside out.”  Graves remembers the mildew, the crumbling plaster.  “It wanted its inhabitants to die under its roof, to join it.”  Credence says, breaking the orange into half, then into segments.  “It was rather lonely.”

Graves drums his bandaged fingers along the surface of the preparation table, the noise is loud in the kitchen.  He relishes the sting of it, just as much as he wishes he could still take laudanum, but Credence expressly forbids it.  Instead, he had to settle for a mild camphor ointment, which at least has the pleasant effect of cooling the burn.

“If anyone can speak with ghosts,”  Graves says,  “Why didn’t it speak to the other mourners?”

Credence smiles faintly, popping a segment into his mouth.  He closes his eyes in pleasure for one brief moment before opening them again, and looking right at Graves.  “Because I can see through their paltry disguises.  Where you saw rot, I saw a lonely soul in agony.  I can force them to leave this plane, and I imagine I can bring them back.”  He shrugs.  “I have never tried though.”

“Bring them back?”  Graves asks apprehensively.  They have never spoken at length about his abilities, Credence knows it frightens Graves, and he doesn’t bring it up for his sake.  After the incident at Seraphina’s house, Graves had nightmares about Credence’s sightless eyes for weeks.

“Like a séance,”  Credence frowns,  “But not really, a séance opens a window between the beyond and our world, though it opens no doors, nothing can pass between the planes but wind and whispers.”  He pauses.  “I can open doors,”  Credence says rather smugly, eating another segment.

“Then the spirit haunting this house—”

“—is still on this plane, yes.”  Credence nods firmly.

“Have you ever done that?”  Graves asks,  “Opened doors, I mean.”

Credence shakes his head, not quite grimacing, but it’s a near thing.  “I don’t know how.”

“But you said you could.”  Graves points out, confused.

Credence rolls his eyes.  “I can sense things, Percy.  I don’t need a séance to know what lies beyond.  I can send spirits through, so long as they open the door themselves, but once I learn how, I know I can bring them back,”  Credence says like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Graves stares at him for a few long moments.

“Don’t do that,”  he finally says.

Credence finishes his orange, reaching across the table for the one in front of Graves.  He says nothing about what was just asked of him.  He makes no promises, no reassurances, nothing, and it frightens Graves.  It makes him think that inevitably Credence will try to bring something back from the beyond, one day, once he learns how.

“No orange will ever taste as good as my first one,”  Credence says abruptly, changing the subject, and Graves is thankful for it.  He rolls the fruit in the palm of his hand, fingers long and delicate.  “It was just lying there, and I snatched it, ignoring everything Ma taught me.  Thieves burn in hellfire, but it was just so beautiful.  I split it with my sisters.”

“Noble,”  Graves says wryly.

“Selfish.”  Credence corrects.  “If we were caught by Ma, we would share the blame.”  Credence rubs his thumb along the bumpy skin, his hands must smell overwhelmingly of citrus.  “We finished the orange together, but I was caught because I hid the peel under my pillow.”  Credence peels this orange in much the same surgical fashion as the one before, dumping the rind in the building pile.  “I liked the smell of it, but that’s what gave me away to Ma.”

“What happened?”  Graves asks warily.

“You know what happened,”  Credence says, sending him a sharp look, and yes, Graves knows what his mother did to him.  “When she was done, she threw me out for the night, a final punishment, as if the belt was not enough.”  His brows scrunch together as he tells his story.  “It was snowing, and I knew if I didn’t find shelter, I would freeze to death before morning, so I found an abandoned building.”  Credence chuckles, though his story is anything but amusing.  “I should have known that something else lived there, chasing away the destitute, but I was so cold, and I didn’t care about anything but not being cold anymore.”

“Credence…”  Graves trails off, at a loss for words.  He doesn’t know why Credence is being so open.  He’s usually reluctant to talk about his past, and it makes the few times he does all the more intense.

“It used to be a workhouse.  They would pick oakum until their fingers bled,”  Credence continues, staring down at the table, the peeled orange limp in his grip.  “If you thought Lady Picquery’s house was terrible, you should have seen the spirits occupying that building.”  He releases a deep, shuddering breath.  “But I made them pass on, every single one of them, and I never slept a wink.”

Graves opens his mouth to say something, but sighs and closes it again.

“I was so scared, Percy.”  Credence’s hand shakes, and the orange rolls from his grip.  “Just as I was when you took that thing’s hand.”

“I…”  Graves starts, then trails off.  “It wore Seraphina’s face.  It made me want to go with it.”

“I know,”  Credence says, and suddenly he looks so tired, so defeated.  He slumps in his seat.  “You weren’t supposed to look at it.”

He purses his lips.  “I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

Credence sighs, then,  “Maybe you should return home, and leave this to me.”

“I’m not leaving you alone,”  Graves says without hesitation.  He thinks of what the corpse told him in the cellar:  _Bring him to me._  No, Graves would rather die before he left Credence to fend for himself in this hell house.

Credence smiles weakly, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.  “I knew you would say that.”

***

The chilly October air has Graves shivering as they walk into the overgrown yard.  An overcast sky hangs above them, a heavy blanket of grey.  Dead vines and weeds poke from the earth, spiraling along the ground.  The ghost of a chicken coop—all tangled wire and rotten wood—sits in a far corner near the shale wall that encircles the whole yard.  The wall is at least two feet taller than Credence, with mortar falling out of cracks, and grey lichen carpeting the disintegrating stone.

A dug well sits in the centre, innocuous enough, though it is in much the same state as the rest of the yard.  He nudges a piece of shale with his toe and it crumbles to dust before his eyes.

Credence’s legs carry him easily over uneven ground.  Graves, on the other hand, stumbles over the many stones hidden in the tangled grass.  He’s usually the graceful one, but when something otherworldly calls, Credence floats over to it like untethered smoke.  He touches the side of the well.  His eyes closed, an expression of intense concentration twisting his mouth, making him look a thousand years older than his youthful twenty three.

“Do you sense anything?”  Graves asks, peering over Credence’s shoulder.  Nothing lies within the well but a deep blackness that would frighten the most hardened nightwalker.  It has him taking Credence by the shoulder, pulling him away from the edge.

“Something is down there, I can feel it,”  Credence murmurs.

A breeze blows by his ear like a whisper, whipping his hair out of its regular styling.  He ignores the chattering of his teeth, bending and picking up a stone.  Weighing it in his hand, he chucks it over the well’s edge.  They wait with bated breath as the stone falls, and just keeps on falling, until a crunch like the sound of footsteps in fresh snow has both of them frowning at each other.

“I think I saw a length of chain in the storage closet.  Wait here.”  Credence turns on his heel and heads back inside.  Graves does not wait by the well.  It’s eerie, and he cannot shake the feeling that something is huddled at the bottom.  He wanders over to the chicken coop.  The lock is still intact, bones scattered within.  The previous owner left their chickens inside, forgetting them when they abandoned the property, leaving them to starve.  Such casual cruelty has him turning away in disgust.

Wrapping his arms around his cold body, shuddering, he glances back to the house, double taking at the light coming from the south-side ballroom window.  It’s a dark red, like the glowing embers of a fire nearly extinguished.  The glass is frosted so he cannot make out distinct shapes, but the glow illuminates the entire room.  Hairs rise on the back of his neck, and his breath escapes in white vapour as the light wavers.  Shadows move around, like the flickering of a candle, and a cold heaviness settles on his shoulders.  He is reminded of the time he returned to his old haunt at the wharf, sitting in a tavern with a glass of wine, only to feel eyes digging into his back.  He had turned to find an bleary-eyed officer staring openly, as if he was the premier exhibition at a circus.  Rumours follow like a loyal dog, but it was the uncertainty of why the officer was staring that ended his trips to the taverns.  He stays home now, and drinks in peace.

In the same manner, whatever lies at the bottom of that well is watching him, as he watches whatever occupies the house.  Graves is paralyzed.  Too fearful to turn around, lest he see a bleary-eyed ghost sitting on that dangerous ledge, a drunken smile on its lips, eager to force its bidding upon him.  A shape moves out of the corner of his eye.  Instinctively, he raises his arm, and catches a flying bundle.  

“You seemed cold,”  Credence says as Graves looks down to the afghan clenched in his hand.  Credence unloads his arms of a coil of chain, sturdy hooks on either end.  It must be what was once used to bring up water from the well.

Graves glances back to the window, but only darkness lies within.

“Thank you,”  Graves says, drawing Credence in for a quick peck to the cheek, before wrapping the musty afghan around his shoulders.

He helps Credence loop the chain around the hand crank, tugging on it a few times until he’s sure it’s sturdy.  He hates being near the well, but Credence needs his help.  Two people must work the crank.

Credence picks up the bundle of chain and drops it over the ledge.  Time seems to stretch on forever as it falls and falls, then, a telltale clatter against the dry well bottom.  Credence wiggles their end.  “I can feel something touching the hook,”  he says, drawing his lip into his mouth, shaking the chain a few more times.  “There.  It’s caught.”

Graves takes one crank handle, Credence grabbing the other side.  Together they wind the chain, pulling it back the way it came.  Even as sweat beads at his brow, trailing down his face to fall off the tip of his nose, they still have more chain to pull back up.  He’s never seen a dug well this deep, it must stretch at least forty feet into the earth.

As he is close to begging for a rest, a cramp aching in his side, the end of the chain, as well as a bundle of cloth attached to it, emerges over the lip.  Tiredly, Graves pulls on the chain until it spills over the ledge to the ground.

“My God,”  Credence breathes.

A skeleton leans against the side of the well.  Ruined clothes drape over the figure, holding dried bones together, flesh rotted away to a tea stained bone.  The skeleton slumps, and the jaw clatters as it falls from the skull in a mockery of a smile.

“Fuck,”  Graves mutters, his hand over his mouth as a cloud of dust rises in its wake.  “We should send for a bobbie.”

“We still don’t know what’s causing the haunting,”  Credence says, crouching in front of the corpse.

“Is it not this poor chap?”  Graves gestures to the skeleton.  “Wait, what are you doing?”  He asks as Credence pats along the front of the skeleton’s clothes.  He reaches into a pocket, pulling out a wrinkled notebook, papers stained and previously waterlogged.  Graves looks over Credence’s shoulder, curiosity getting the better of him, though he’s disappointed to see that much of the ink has washed away.  As Credence continues to flip through, he notices a few entries written in graphite.  There are even passages in an oriental language.

“ _June 5th, 1838,_ ”  Credence reads,  “ _Al calls me a fool, but I know that my hunch is correct.  When the manuscripts finally arrive from the Egyptologist, it will prove that I was right all along._ ”

“1838?  That’s over fifty years ago,”  Graves says,  “The body was down there for so long?  It should have rotted away by now.”

“It must be very dry,”  Credence holds out the book.  Graves touches it and finds it’s pages warm.  “It was much warmer when we pulled him out.”  Credence shuts the notebook, then to Graves’ surprise, he tucks it into his own jacket.  “We have to find the other body.”

“Other body?”  Graves asks, trying not fall into hysterics, but going by Credence’s worried expression, he’s utterly failing.  “What’s wrong with this perfectly good body right here?”

“Its soul has already passed on.”  Credence closes his eyes, a furrow deepening between his brows.  “Something else occupies this house, and it’s not this poor bastard.”


	3. Chapter 3

They keep the skeleton in a trunk they find in the cellar.  Graves supposes that being dead, the owner of the body doesn’t mind the treatment.  From where he stands, Graves can just make out the trunk’s edges in the flickering of candlelight.  Its presence feels like a weight on his shoulders.  He hates being around it, and cannot shake the feeling that it’s watching him, even though Credence insists that the owner’s soul has long passed on.

The candelabra shakes in his hand as he stands in front of the mysterious cellar door, the key hanging from a cord around his neck.  It’s ice cold against his chest, even through his clothes.  Credence says nothing about it, though he obviously disapproves of Graves keeping it so close.  Just as Graves says nothing about the notebook Credence spends hours flipping through, to the point of obsession.  They’ve been in this house four days, and are no closer to freeing it from possession.  They hardly even talk to one another anymore.  Credence is too involved in deciphering the notebook, and Graves… well, this is the third time he’s come to the cellar today alone.

Placing the candelabra on the flagstones, he pulls the key from beneath his jacket.  Rolling it over in his hand, he strokes the rough iron.  There are no markings on its surface, no identifying engravings, nothing but rust, but Graves knows in his heart that it is the key to this door.  All that’s left is the question of whether he even wants it open.  The spirit took Seraphina’s form to bring him here, to show him a door, then give him a key to open it, but for what reason?

He barely knows anything about the spirit, except that it enjoys the games it plays.  The burned rat Credence found in the ballroom—after Graves saw that eerie fire from the yard—only proves it is taunting them.

He drops the key, and it falls with a dull thud against his breastbone.  With one look over his shoulder to the trunk—searching for any sign that something is watching—he slowly lifts his hand and presses it to the wooden door.  It’s not warm or cold, it simply is, the wood rough beneath his hands, cracked and warped with age.  Leaning even closer, he presses his ear to it, but all he hears is the pounding of blood in his veins.

Graves steps back, and tucks the key away.  He’s not here to do the dead’s bidding, even as curiosity eats him alive.  He picks up the candelabra, then walks over to the stairs, passing by the trunk.

Stopping abruptly, a foot already on the first step, he tells the trunk , “I wasn’t always a coward.”

The empty bones don’t answer, and Graves shakes his head, wondering why he feels the need to explain himself to a corpse.  He climbs the rest of the way to the top.  He cannot talk to the dead, and has no business trying.

***

Graves takes to cleaning the ballroom.  He has nothing better to do—the idleness of sitting by while Credence consumes himself in a mystery he cannot decode has him feeling much too restless for his own good.   Besides, it’s a beautiful room, or at least it used to be.  With a little work it could be once again.

He pushes all the furniture to the side—exhausting work, especially with only one hand—and sweeps with a broom made of what appears to be a clump of straw tied together with twine.  He found it in a closet, and it makes a sharp, grating noise along the floor.  It has him clenching his teeth together, all the better since the sweeping raises a hazy cloud of dust, and he’d prefer not to breathe it in.

In the afternoon, Credence comes by to check in on him, asking if he would like something to eat.  Graves turns him down, and for a second Credence looks ready to protest, but he takes one look at his fumbling attempt at cleaning, marches right in, and instructs him on the proper way to sweep, before leaving again.  Graves is thankful, there’s much less dust flying about, and he’s sneezing less, also the dirt seems to be going in a directed pile instead of all over the place.

Graves opens the window to let some air in, notices the well in the backyard, and shuts the curtain so he doesn’t have to look at it.  The floor near the window is still stained with filth, and no matter how much he scrubs at it, he cannot seem to get out the stains.  The Goldsteins will have to hire floor scrapers to come in and do away with a thick layer.  Hopefully the wood is salvageable, it seems a shame to let its beauty go to waste.  Sighing, as he sits on the floor, he swipes his hand across his forehead, wiping away sweat, and dirtying his face in the process.  His good hand is filthy, even as his bad one rests in his lap, the cleanest part of him.  The irony strikes him as particularly amusing, his own brand of fatal humour.

The wallpaper above the fireplace mantel is so soot stained even he has to admit it’s a lost cause.  Although, the decorative tiles along the front seem like they could be an easy clean.  Credence said he found the rat burning in the middle of the firebox, no kindling or wood in sight.  With the bright light Graves saw from the yard, he had imagined it burned in a bonfire in the centre of the room.  There’s something about the fireplace that ties knots in his stomach.  There’s nothing wrong with it physically—there are no occult symbols painted on the tiles, nothing that overt—but whenever he looks into the firebox, into that unrelenting darkness, black with years upon years of soot buildup, he’s struck with a sense of wrongness.

Credence pokes his head through the door, and Graves sends him a relieved smile.  “I must insist you come eat,”  Credence says,  “It’s time for supper, and you did not have lunch.”  The setting sun casts a red light in the room, lengthening the shadows into unrecognizable shapes.  He didn’t even notice the day passing by.

Washing quickly, he pays special attention to scrubbing under his nails until they are free of dirt, then descends the stairs to find Credence already eating, his nose buried in his reading.  The notebook is an unpleasant addition to their routine, but he’s not bothered that Credence did not wait for him before eating.  Credence’s relationship with food has always been a complicated one.  He eats hunched over his plate, one hand encircling his setting, hiding his meal from view.  He’s protective of his food, afraid that it could be taken from him at any moment, and if that moment ever comes, he’s ready to fight tooth and nail for it.  Graves does not know how much time Credence spent on the streets—between his life under his mother’s thumb, to when his family took him in, but he knows it was long enough to develop habits that once taken up are difficult to shake.

“It looks good,”  Graves says about the simple meat and potato stew Credence prepared.  While working under the head steward during his first year in the Graves household, Credence learned how to make a decent meal.  Though, he was soon snatched from kitchen service once Graves’ father discovered that he could read: having needed help with his failing eyesight.

Credence only hums, not once looking up from the notebook, eyes flicking from side to side as he reads.  Graves sighs, and digs in.  The rest of the meal falls into silence, occasionally interrupted by the whisper of Credence turning a page.  Graves is tempted to wrest the notebook from him so they can have a conversation—they need to discuss what they’re going to do about this house and the key—but he gets the feeling that would only irritate him, and an irritated Credence is likely to go out of his way to ignore him.  He can be rather petulant when he wants to be, and even when he doesn’t mean to.

Later, as they lie side by side in bed, shoulders touching, a candle burning steadily by their bedside, Graves realizes they haven’t kissed in over two days, and haven’t taken pleasure in each other in thrice that.  Graves turns on his shoulder, facing Credence.  He runs his fingers along Credence’s hand, slipping beneath the flannel he wears, trailing along his sturdy wrist.  Credence’s dark eyes flicker over to him, watching as Graves leans even closer.  He kisses Credence’s shoulder, a soft press of his lips, then his collarbone, then his neck.  Credence’s pulse flutters beneath his spread lips.  He touches that warm skin with the tip of his tongue, and Credence shivers.

Graves climbs over him.  It takes some effort, but Credence helps him along, hands fisted in his nightshirt, pulling him up and over.  Soon he’s pressed all along the front of him, their legs tangled as Graves peppers kisses all along the column of his neck.  Credence makes soft, breathy sighs in his ear which only serve to urge him on.  He doesn’t bother to hold himself up, just braces his knees by the side of Credence’s hips, knowing he loves having the weight of him draped over his body like a comforting blanket.

When Credence’s hands slide up to tangle in his hair, Graves pulls back to look at him, seeking to finally kiss his mouth.  He finds Credence with his head tilted to the side, mouth open in pleasure, yes, but with eyes fixed squarely on the nightstand, on that damned notebook.  A plethora of emotions run through him in that moment, none of them pleasant.  Graves rolls off Credence, wincing when long fingers catch in the tangled mess of his hair.

Lying on his pillow, Graves’ chest rises and falls as he tries to catch his breath, willing his desire to go away.  He wants to pick up that fucking notebook and cast it into the stove’s flames.  Credence says nothing, as typical, but he turns, and Graves feels the weight of his gaze on the side of his face.  Graves shifts, rolling away from Credence, until he’s looking into the dark side of the room.  It’s layered in shadows, and untouched by the weak candlelight.  He would rather look into the spirit’s domain than at Credence right now, especially when he feels so displaced, so unwanted, so frustrated.

An arm slides around his waist, resting on his stomach.  Fingers slip beneath his waistline, but Graves stops them, wrapping his own fingers around Credence’s wrist before he can go any further.  Properly chastised, Credence retreats, but Graves stops him before he can pull away completely.  He keeps his hand on his waist, comforting, but not suggestive.  It isn’t what he wants.  He wants to touch Credence, he wants to kiss him, but Graves has his pride, and he refuses to be second best to the smudged words of a dead man or woman.  For the thousandth time today, Graves wishes they never found that body.

Graves wakes later in the night, the candle having gone out a long time ago.  Credence has his arms wrapped around him, tighter than ever before.

Movement flutters out of the corner of his eye, and he looks to the window, but cannot turn his head fully in the position he is in.  Pursing his lips, he slowly lifts Credence’s arm from his waist, unwrapping fingers from where they clutch in his flannel.  Something moves again, and Graves pulls down the covers, shivering when a draft seeps through his sleep clothes in a matter of seconds.  He tucks them back around Credence who unconsciously shifts forward to occupy the warm space Graves just left.  He knows he should ignore it, as he should have ignored Seraphina, but he still walks barefoot, compelled, to the window.  A shape moves beyond the curtain, and as he pulls back it back, he finally sees what it is.

A raven rests on the windowsill.  When it sees him, intelligent eyes as dark as coal fix upon him.  It’s a rather large bird, about the size of a terrier.  It sits eerily still as it considers him, eyes blinking.  Graves has seen ravens before—though hardly ever in the city, crows are more common, ravens prefer the countryside.  They’re intelligent birds, always moving, always searching for food.

When he would wander the moors with Seraphina, he would see them flying in the distance, tiny specks of black in the endless grey sky.  The first time the two of them followed the birds’ circling, they came across the rotting carcass of a red deer laid out on the peat, eyes glassy, and coat matted with dried blood.  Graves had panicked, insisting that they leave—he noticed that the deer had its throat torn out.  Seraphina had been less concerned.  A wolf had not been seen in England in over two hundred years, she said a lost coursing hound must have done the deed.

A raven had flown down then, to land on the exposed bone of the deer’s carcass, shaking its tail feathers.  It had tipped its head to one side, and then the other, watching to see if they would attempt to take away its meal—deciding if they were a threat.  Graves had wondered if it had ever seen a human before they came along, or if it lived a solitary life, filled only with thoughts of a grey sky and green earth.  It was only after he pointed out that a hungry hound could be just as vicious as a wolf that they left, never again following the distant circling of ravens.

This raven sits still, and barely moves.  Graves would think it dead if not for its blinking eyes, and the familiar key it holds in its beak.  Taken aback, he touches his chest and finds the iron key gone.  The cord is still tied, unbroken, but the key is no longer strung on it.  He stares at the raven, and the raven stares back as it holds the key like an invitation.  Graves never took it off, not to sleep, and not the bathe, and yet...  at least the bird doesn’t seem inclined to fly off with it anytime soon.  It’s as if the raven wants him to take it back.

He sends a nervous look towards the bed.  Credence sleeps soundly, buried beneath the blankets.  If he were awake, he would demand Graves ignore the bird, that there’s no reason for him to want for something that was forced into his possession.  Credence would tell him to let it be, but Graves cannot.  He’s always been too curious.  Too cowardly, too curious—he’s a contradiction all around.

The latch is cold beneath his fingers as he lifts it, and the window creaks open. The cold no longer seeps through, it pours all in a rush, blowing the curtains back, bringing with it the familiar stench of London’s streets.  The raven ruffles its feathers, unperturbed by Graves’ presence, it deposits the key right on the ledge, croaking once, a note that comes from deep in its chest.  Graves studies the key, now that he can see it properly, and it is absolutely the same one he wore the last few days.

“How did you get this?”  He murmurs to the raven, but it only blinks at him.

He reaches for the key, but the moment he touches it, the raven swoops low and pecks at him, beak as sharp as a knife.  Crying out, Graves feels his skin tear.  He swipes the key, and in the same movement closes the window with a firm snap, stumbling back, eyes wide.  Clutching his hand to his chest, his heart beating faster than ever, he feels slippery blood slide down his wrist.

The raven goes mad.  It violently pecks at the glass, screeching, wings flapping as it hops from side to side, screaming and trying its damndest to get in.

The sheets rustle, and the bed creaks.  A sharp intake of breath, and Credence is awake, but he isn’t as quiet as last time.  He immediately calls out Graves’ name, scrambling up, the sheets flying down to his ankles.  With hands flapping about, he scratches at the bed, as if he thinks Graves sank into the mattress and he must dig him out.  When he finally notices Graves by the window, his panicked expression smoothes into one of exhausted relief.

“I told you not to scare me like that,”  Credence scolds, circles dark standing in stark contrast beneath his eyes.  Graves cannot believe he never noticed them before.  He looks worn thin.

“I’m sorry,”  Graves apologies, sweeping the curtains shut.  It does nothing for the racket the raven is raising, but it blocks it from view.  He moves to the side of the bed.  Credence raises a single brow, questioning.  “There’s a bird throwing up a fuss.”

Credence frowns.  “What did you do to it?”

Graves makes an offended noise.  “I did nothing.”

“Corvids have a good memory.  They remember if someone hurt them,”  Credence says.

“And I suppose you are an expert on corvids,”  Graves huffs, wanting this discussion over and done with, his hand hurts terribly.  He’s just thankful it’s dark enough that Credence doesn’t notice the blood.  “Enough of this, go back to sleep.”

Credence looks at him with too sharp eyes.  They remind him of the raven, and he finds himself breaking their intense gaze, unable to hold it any longer.  The raven has stopped its screaming, and Graves wonders if it has flown away or if it’s still sitting there, watching them argue.  Credence says something, but he doesn’t catch it.  “What?”  He asks.

“I said, come to bed.”

“I need to use the loo,”  he mutters, the cut throbs with the beat of his heart, and he needs to bandage it before he bleeds through his night shirt.  He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do it on his own, but he doesn’t want to worry Credence.  Between the healing burn, and now the cut, Graves has not been this injured since the fiery end of his command.

Credence sighs in frustration, scrubbing a hand through his hair.  He looks so tired, and Graves hates what this house is doing to him.  What he’s doing to him.  “Percy, don’t lie to me.  Why are holding your hand like that?”

Graves holds out for a long moment, but Credence’s determination is just as unwavering.  Hanging  his head in defeat, he hunkers down on the bed, and tells Credence what happened.

The key sits on the bedside table as Credence cleans the jagged wound by weak candlelight.  The water in the porcelain basin is stained pink by the time he finishes, throwing the cloth in with a splash.  He holds Graves’ hand, studying the wound with a critical eye.  His palms are warm, and his fingers are soft, but his eyes are hard.  He’s angry, but knowing Credence, it’s not specifically at him.  He’s like a spark, his mood changes at the smallest of things, growing until it consumes everything in its path, and by the Lord above, Graves loves him so.

“It doesn’t look like it needs sutures,”  Credence says, picking up a roll of silk gauze.  He wraps Graves’ palm in the clean fabric, careful not to pull too tight, or to leave it too loose.  It’s just right.  It still aches, but it’s a dull pain by this point.  A few drops of laudanum could take care of it, but he’s not allowed to partake, and he has to remember that.  Credence’s head dips, and he brushes his lips lightly against the silk.  “I wish you would leave it be.”  Graves looks pointedly at the notebook, then back to Credence, lifting both his brows.  Credence doesn’t have the decency to look ashamed.

“You cannot even read it,”  Graves says,  “The ink is washed away, and most of what’s readable is in another language.”

“You above all other people should understand what this feels like, Percy,”  Credence murmurs.  He takes the key and wipes it of blood before handing it back to Graves.  His lips go thin, his expression unreadable.  “Are you going to open that door in the cellar?”

“I don’t know,”  He groans, opening and closing his hand, testing it out.  The burn is barely healed, and now with the cut, the next few days will be unpleasant to say the least.  “But this will continue to happen.  The spirit wants to show us something, we’ll be stuck in this limbo forever until we do what it wants.”

Credence shakes his head, picking up the basin, he places it on the dressing table.  “It doesn’t want to show _us_ something, it wants to show _you_ something.”

“But why?  Is there a reason it chose me?”  He asks, frustrated, and so very tired.

Credence pats his shoulder, comforting.  “Percy, darling, of course there is.”

“But you don’t know what it is,”  Graves deduces.

Credence shakes his head, and he purses his lips,  “The words are unreadable, and the spirit avoids me.”  He bites his bottom lip so hard it seems painful.  He looks away, softly saying,  “I know nothing, I’ve always known nothing.”

***

There’s a dead raven on the preparation table.  Graves takes one look at its smouldering corpse, and runs to the basin, throwing up the contents of his empty stomach.  The raven could be resting, if it weren’t for the burning feathers and smoke wafting from it.  Its back and wings are a mangled mess of burns, but its face and beak were left untouched.  With eyes open and glossy in death, Graves wonders if it saw its killer before it was left as a message.  He thinks it was the one from the night before, but he cannot be sure.

“Percy?”  Credence runs into the kitchen, eye flicking over to the raven before he skirts around the table to rub a soothing hand along his back.  Credence grabs a glass from the cupboard, filling it with water.  Graves takes the offered water and washes the bad taste from his mouth.

Graves wipes his lips with the handkerchief Credence pulls from his pocket.  “We need to get this out of here,”  he croaks.

A few minutes later, and Graves watches from the front window as Credence hands a farthing to a cart driver who tips his hat, taking the raven away.

When Credence comes back inside, Graves clenches his hand until it hurts, saying, “I must have angered it.”

“Maybe?  I don’t know.”  Credence pinches the bridge of his nose, frowning in frustration.  “It doesn’t want to communicate with me, usually spirits are eager, this one chooses to remain in the shadows and I don’t know how to bring it out.”

Graves clenches his jaw, nodding his resolve.  “I need to open the door in the cellar, it’s the only way.”

Credence looks at him, he tries to hide his emotions, but Graves knows him so well, and his fear is terribly apparent to see.

A few minutes later and Graves is in the cellar.  Credence declined to join him, cryptically saying that the spirit does not want him there, and that the key would not fit if he was.  Taking a deep breath, praying that no beasts lie on the other side, Graves slides the key into the lock, and turns it with a click, pushing it open into pitch black darkness.  He picks up the candelabra, hand shaking, fear sending his heart beating a staccato in his chest.  He ducks his head, and steps into the darkness.  This time the door does not slam closed behind him, a small blessing.

The candlelight casts an orange glow over a room filled to the brim with crates upon crates upon crates, and there, stood tall in the midst of them is Seraphina in her Sunday finest.  The light falls on her in stages, and it seems as though she’s really there, but he knows better.  She doesn’t smile, instead her expression is devoid of all emotion, but in her hands rests a tome, a smaller notebook balanced on top.  The tome’s cover is bound in leather, geometric motifs embossed in gold onto the surface.  The edges of the pages are stained a deep madder.  Seraphina shifts it in her arms, and she runs her finger along a spine that bears no title, only more gold motifs.  Graves looks around, trying to get a sense of this room, wanting to know what is hidden inside those dusty crates, but he soon finds his eyes drifting back to Seraphina without his control.

_Not yet._

“What do you want from me?”  He asks, voice cracking on the last word, his hand throbs.  Seraphina steps forward, and Graves flinches, but she doesn’t move any more, she only holds out the books in offering.  “I don’t understand, what is all of this?”  He gestures to the full room.

 _Your reward, so long as you bring him to me_ .   _Take the book, give it to your lover, then decide._

Graves finds himself walking over, and Seraphina tucks them underneath his arm.  “Decide what?”  He asks cautiously.  Seraphina’s lips curl back, such a snarl would not look out of place on a fierce tiger, but on a ten year old child it is chilling.

_If you wish to give him his heart’s desire._

“I don’t understand.  Why have you given me the key, why not talk to Credence?”  Graves demands, nothing about this makes any sense.

_There are things more addictive than even laudanum, Percival.  You yearn for the sweet relief of a drug to take away your pain, but you cannot comprehend the obsession your lover feels._

She taps a long finger on the cover of the notebook, it’s so similar to the one they found in the well—the one Credence never lets it out of his sight.  It remains on Credence’s bedside table when he’s sleeping.  When he goes about his business, he keeps it tucked in his jacket pocket, flipping through it at every chance.  Graves hasn’t had the opportunity to look through it since that first time, let alone touch it.  Credence is obsessed.  He’s looking for something, and whatever it is, it consumes him.

_The answer to every question he longs to know lies within this room, but men have fallen to madness for such knowledge._

Graves frowns, studying Seraphina, but her expression gives nothing away.  “You’re saying I should keep this from him.”

_All I do is offer you a choice, what you do beyond that is your decision._

Graves chews on his bottom lip.  “Who did you want brought to you?”  A few days ago he thought the spirit meant Credence, but now he knows different.  He thinks of the body they pulled up from the well, bones lying in a trunk, its soul passed on.  Credence said he could bring a soul back, if only he knew how.  Graves stares at Seraphina, and she finally smiles, though it is cold and unfeeling, sinister in the way the shadows hide most of her face.  The spirit cannot seem to capture her humanity—all that makes Seraphina, Seraphina.  Graves swallows the sticky feeling in his throat, but when he answers his own question his voice comes out raspy.  “You want Credence to bring back the person we found in the well.”

It isn’t a question, and the spirit doesn’t answer.

“What is in the crates?”  Graves asks, emboldened, but suddenly his feet are no longer his, they turn him around.  Of course he resists, looking over his shoulder as he is forced to leave, but he can do nothing. Seraphina watches impassively, and it feels as though there’s a hook buried in his ribs, sickeningly pulling him.  If he resists, he fears something inside him might tear.  The door closes behind him with a soft snap, and he notices the key is not longer in the lock.  He is released, and immediate bends over, gasping for air, sick to his stomach.

He nearly drops the candelabra in his haste to hurry up the steps, to Credence.

***

Graves mixes a dash of cream in Credence’s tea, splashing some Irish whiskey in his.  Holding onto one edge of the tea tray, he slides it off the counter, sloshing a little tea over the edge as he braces his useless arm under the other side so it doesn’t tip.  Sometimes he truly feels like a acrobat.  He’s just glad Credence doesn’t coddle him.

He carries the tray to the sitting room, finding Credence with his nose buried in the new notebook.  It’s a translation and annotation of the larger tome which, while illuminated, is written in an unknown oriental language with flowing script—the same language in the other notebook.  The handwriting between the two notebooks is the same.  They both were written by the skeleton in the well.

Credence hums distractedly as Graves places the cup in front of him, not even looking up or taking his tea.  Graves sighs, sitting down beside him, keeping his saucer on his lap as he sips from the cup.  The tea and whiskey burn in two different ways they slide down his throat.  “Have you found anything?”

“Some sort of spell,”  Credence says distractedly,  “It appears to temporarily summon the dead from the beyond.”

Graves sputters, tea spilling down his lip.  “I’m sorry, what?”  Licking the tea from his lips, he leans closer.  He cannot believe it would be that easy, that the spirit simply gave this to them.  Credence looks up, and his eyes immediately drift down to Graves’ mouth, cheeks flushing delightfully.  Unable to resist, Graves presses a kiss to the apple of his cheek.  It’s nice to know he’s still desired, even in the presence of this new notebook, especially after what happened last night.

Looking the page Credence is reading, he takes in the writing.  This passage outlines step by step instructions for a summoning circle used to communicate with the deceased.

Credence touches the pages.  “We should cast it on the bones, then we can ask him about the spirit, and the other body.”

Graves’ throat goes dry.  He hasn’t told Credence about the crates.  He said he found the two books, and nothing else in the room, and as far as Credence knows, the spirit did not speak to him, and certainly did not ask anything of him.

“You know the skeleton’s sex?”  Graves asks, clearing his throat.  The skeleton wore a man’s clothing, but knowing Tina Goldstein’s fashion choices, that’s barely indicative of anything.  “What else do you know?”

“He was not a good person, Percy,”  Credence says, tapping at the notebook’s margins where the annotations are scrawled in a fine script.  “He dealt in artefacts from the East, and had no qualms about committing atrocities to get what he wanted.”

“Atrocities?”  Graves frowns in thought, the spirit wants this man’s soul brought back for a reason, and there’s only one he can think of that’s worth crossing the veil between this plane and the next.  “Like murder?”

Credence grimaces.  Turning back to the notebook, he says,  “Among other things.”

The temperature drops that night, scattered flakes of snow falling from the sky, only to melt as they touch the ground.  Anyone still on the streets, rushes to find shelter from the incoming cold front, as it arrives much earlier than usual this year.  Graves wraps his jacket tighter around his body, shivering slightly in the sitting room.  He cannot wait to retire for the night, light the stove in the room, and curl up beside Credence, their arms wrapped around each other.

Credence sits in the same spot, his tea gone cold and untouched.  Graves takes it and disposes of it in the kitchen.  On the way back, he notices a pile of kindling and wood stacked by the cellar door.  A cold draft blows by his neck, raising goose pimples on his skin.  If he lights the fireplace in the ballroom, it should heat the entire house, as well as warm his cold bones.  His knee is aching again.  His teeth chatter as he picks up the bundled kindling.  He’ll come back for the wood.

A few trips later, and a pile of wood lies at his feet as he stands in front of the grand fireplace. Queenie says it is much to difficult to light, but Graves is not one to back down from a challenge.  He’s lit a few fires when he was a child, before the Graves household switched to coal stoves.  Of course he’s more used to starting campfires, but he understands the basics.  Taking off his jacket, he lays it on a chair far away, so it doesn't dirty.  Looking down at his fine linen shirt, he quickly decides to remove it, as well as his undershirt.

Barechested and shivering in the cold, he strikes a match.  Ducking under the lintel and into the firebox, he has a good look at what he’s working with.  Graves no longer fears fire as he did a year ago, but he still drops the match before it burns too low.  Lighting another one, he peers over the damper and sees that the flue is free of soot.  He drops the match, and it fades to a glowing ember.  The starry sky smiles far above his head.  

He strikes another on the brick wall, and the red light floods the small space.  Turning his head to pull himself out, he finally sees what lies on the smoke shelf.

The match burns to his fingers.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand it's done! Hopefully you guys like this chapter, it's my personal favourite! It also earns the explicit rating... so yeahhhh
> 
> Also, I made some art of the creepy ballroom of doom, surprise!

[tumblr link to art](http://iamonlydancing.tumblr.com/post/166761307392/a-time-of-ancient-ghosts-or-the-one-where-credence)

***

He pulls out the last bone, laying it on a canvas tarp as Credence watches silently.  It’s a femur, the largest bone in the human body, but it’s half the size of a normal adult’s.  The bones are blackened from soot and slightly charred, but it’s unmistakable: this is a child’s body.

“Who would do such a thing?”  Graves asks through clenched teeth, angrily wiping the soot from his face with a damp handkerchief that Credence gives him.  He crouches in front of the bones.  They look so small, so brittle.  If Graves had not been exceedingly careful in handling them, they might have crumbled to dust in his hands.

“The last body we found, I suspect,”  Credence says grimly, and Graves looks at him.  His face is paler than usual, and his back is ramrod straight as he stares at the bones.  His hands are clenched in fists at his sides, and Graves knows that if he were to pry them open he would find crescent shaped red marks on his palms.  “In his writing he seemed _comfortable_ with committing murder for the artefacts he dealt in.  Killing a child and hiding the body would be no sin to him.  I doubt he even needed a motive.”  Credence’s jaw goes tight, and something like grief briefly flashes in his eyes.  “Perhaps they came begging to his door, and he killed them for sport.  It would not be the first time that has happened.”

Graves swallows, and he has to look away.  It feels as though he has no right to intrude on whatever traumatizing memory Credence is rousing.  He would have been this young when he was living on the streets, begging at the houses of the wealthy, like so many other children.  The Graves household welcomes the destitute to take a meal in the kitchens, but many others are not as generous.  Credence likely knew someone who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, as children are oft to do on the lonely, dark streets of London.

Those small bones lie on the tarp, and Graves cannot help but wonder why.

They had lain on the smoke shelf when he and Credence danced together, while he cleaned the ballroom, when the spirit burned a rat in the hearth.  If it wanted to draw their attention to the body, why didn’t it mention it?  Unless that isn’t what it wanted at all.  Whenever Graves came near the fireplace, he always feels a looming eeriness, warning him to stay back.  Perhaps that feeling was not conjured up by his own fear of fire, but one instituted by the spirit.

He wipes down his neck, but the handkerchief has turned black with soot.  It only smears the dirt around.  His mind runs through every possibility, but none of them make any sense.  He knows what the spirit wants, but he does not understand its motivations.

Graves balls up the cloth in his fist, saying,  “We don’t know for sure that it was the man in the well.”

“We will, when we question him,”  Credence says simply.

“Credence...”  Graves sighs, trailing off, not knowing what to say to that.  Credence wants to bring him back, but that’s exactly what the spirit wants.  How can he even begin to explain what it told him in the cellar?  He was told to keep secrets from Credence for his sake, but why offer those crates—those promises of knowledge—in the first place?  And why should it care about Credence’s obsessions?  Why, why, why.  Nothing makes any sense.  He rubs his hand over his face.  He’s tired, his bones ache, his muscles throb, and he feels so damn fatalistic as he makes his decision.  “I need to tell you something.”

Credence hums.  He steps close to Graves, but doesn’t wrap his arms around him as he usually would, instead he wrinkles his nose.  “First, let's get you cleaned up.”

***

Credence lights the stove, and Graves sits patiently on a nearby stool as the water heats, his arms wrapped around his shoulders.  The lone window on the far wall does not yet have curtains, but the glass is frosted, and all Graves can see is the deep indigo of the night sky.  It must be the only window in the house that does not leak.  Despite that, the white and black checkered tiles are cold beneath his curled toes, and the empty copper tub calls to him invitingly.  It’s tarnished in places, the patina showing through in spots of azure that remind him of Gibraltar bay, where his command lies in her final resting place.  But, it’s clean, and that’s all that matters.

Credence strokes the coals, then shuts the cast iron door with a soft click.  Turning the crystal taps, the water comes out steaming as it passes through the copper pipes coiled around the base.  Running his hand beneath the stream, Credence adjusts the cold tap until it’s the perfect temperature, exactly how he knows Graves likes it.

Absentmindedly, he rubs his thumb against the scab on his palm where the raven pecked him.  His skin is no longer pink from the heat of Seraphina’s palm, but it has a tendency to peel.  His index finger is slightly red at the tip where the fire touched him.  The match, he recalls.  He had turned away from that beautiful starry sky to see a body curled in fetal position, fabric and muscle long burned away.  He had stared for so long, disbelieving, he did not even feel the familiar sting of fire.  Graves cannot seem to get the memory of those small bones out of his head.  He’d had to sweep his fingers through the ashes of what was once a person to collect the smallest bones he would have missed otherwise.  Knucklebones, and vertebrae, ribs, and radii.  His nails are black with ash.  It’ll take more than soap to get them clean.

Credence touches him on the shoulder, drawing him out of his thoughts.  His fingers warm from the water, nails neatly trimmed—he used to bite them to the quick, but he doesn’t anymore.  Graves stands, and unbuttons his pants, slipping out of his drawers as well, tossing the clothes aside to be washed.  There’s probably no saving them, no amount of lye could remove those stains.  Sliding into the water, he sighs in relief.  Credence takes his place on the stool, dark eyes as studious as ever.

“Good?”  Credence asks lightly, fingers trailing along the edge of the tub.

“Yes, thank you.”  Graves leans over and softly brushes their lips together.  “It’s perfect.”

He dips beneath the water, getting his hair wet, and when he emerges he finds the water stained grey from all the soot.  Black runs like pitch down his torso, through his chest hair.  He purses his lips in displeasure.  Graves wants to scrub himself so clean he turns the colour of a blushing ingenue.  Credence seems to read his mind, because he strokes a hand down the back of his neck, pushing him forward so he can rub a washcloth along his back.  The soap fills his senses, smelling of roses, almost sickly so.  He strokes along shrapnel scars, burns on flesh, down to his mangled arm sitting useless on the tub’s edge.  Credence cleans him with perfunct swipes.  He’s seen it all a thousand times.  Graves closes his eyes in pleasure, bowing his head until his forehead touches the surface of the water, letting Credence scrub him pink.  His breaths come out in short huffs, disturbing the water, and sending ripples in all directions.

“Do you remember the first time I did this for you?”  Credence asks quietly, the washcloth trailing back up his spine.

“How could I forget?”  Graves says, turning his head and resting it on his knee, studying the impassive look on Credence’s face.  “You were blushing to the tips of your ears the whole time.”

“That’s because you pulled me into the tub with you, clothes and all,”  Credence says, a slight smile twitching on his lips.

“You seemed to enjoy that, if I recall,”  Graves says, flicking a little water over his shoulder, earning him a swat.

Credence rubs soap into his hair, fingernails scratching at his scalp, and Graves moans, a low sound that comes from deep in his chest.  Credence’s voice comes out husky as he says, “You were naked, of course I was blushing.”

“I’m naked right now,”  Graves reminds, sending him a smarmy smirk.

“I’m used to it.”  Credence huffs, even though there’s a blush rising to the tops of his cheekbones.  He has the discipline of an ascetic monk.  When they were courting it was frustrating, but Graves learned how to get under his skin, to bring out his deepest wants and desires.  When Credence knows what he wants, he’s gorgeous, but when he asks for it, begs even, he’s resplendent.

“Oh?”  Graves quirks a brow.  “Is my charm wearing off?”

Credence takes him by the shoulder and spins him so they face each other.  Graves feels his heart race as he looks at him, at the tenderness in his eyes, the blatant love.  He used to believe the love he felt for Credence would burn unrequited for the rest of their lives.  He brushed off their shared looks, the touches that lingered just a little too long as wishful thinking.  Credence kissed him first, one night as they both sat together in the study, reading in companionable silence.  He had walked up to Graves, resolve in his steely eyes and clenched jaw.  The only sign of his nervousness were the sweaty palms he laid upon Graves’ cheeks as he tipped his head back to lay a kiss, first on the corner of his mouth, then a proper one on his lips.

“Your body is not what makes you charming.”  Credence says, placing his hand on Graves’ chest, right over his heart.  “It makes you handsome, yes.”  he trails a finger up through his chest hair, tapping at his chin,  “But it is your words that never fail to charm me.  It’s always been you.”

He swallows, looking deeply into Credence’s eyes.  He doesn’t blink, and neither does Graves, they just look at each other.  They could spend eternity looking at each other, until the bathwater freezes to ice and the city falls to ashes around them.  “That’s good to know,”  he says, voice shaking.

Credence cups his jaw, stroking his thumb along his cheek.  “I love you, evermore,”  he declares, but words are not enough for what they feel for each other, they never have been.

“I love you too,”  Graves echoes, leaning in and kissing his ring, then diving in for another to his mouth.  Their lips touch and the sound that rises from his throat is loud, but so very indicative of what he feels.  Credence’s hands slip down his neck to grip his shoulders, fingers gliding along his wet skin, along the scars of long healed injuries.  His touch feels like the sting of raging hornets, the icy burn of menthol syrup sliding down his throat.  The washcloth floats, forgotten, to the bottom of the tub.

Something warm curls in his chest, as Credence’s fingers dig into his shoulders.  Kissing Credence is a soft spring morning.  It is the satisfaction of climbing the tallest fell, the wind blowing in his hair, boots muddied, and knees stained green from bruised grass.  His mouth is warm and soft, and his kisses are exploratory and curious.  This is in no way their first kiss, but it feels as though it could be.  His ruined hand tremors in anticipation, far out of his control.  He was once ashamed of it, trying his darndest to hide it the first few times they fucked.  But now Credence threads their fingers together, and Graves imagines he can feel his touch as more than just pressure.

A tongue licks into his mouth, and something wild and desperate shudders to life in him.  He bites at Credence’s bottom lip, sucking the flesh into his mouth.  Credence’s nails hurt as they scrape down his bicep, hand tightening on his arm.  He pulls on Graves until their lips break, and he is forced to stand, water trailing down his body.  Credence dances back to him, and wraps his arm around his torso, pressing their bodies together, uncaring that he’s wetting his clothes.  Credence’s desire scratches like nails down his back, and Graves shudders, goose pimples rising on his skin, and it isn’t from the cold.  The stove has warmed the room, and Graves barely feels any discomfort as Credence pulls him, until he steps out of the tub, water splashing to the chilly floor, puddling around his feet.

Credence looks drugged, eyes so dark and all pupil, as if he had just taken a tincture of belladonna.  He’s drunk on lust, and Graves wants him more that he wants air.  Credence pushes him down, and he lets himself be led, until he sits on the edge of the tub, the copper warm beneath his wet thighs.  He shivers as he realizes what Credence has in mind, when he steps between Graves’ legs, spreading them more.  His kiss is messy and vicious, but gone much too soon.  Graves does not feel too sad about it, especially when Credence’s lips move to his chin, to his throat, to his ear.  He sucks on the flesh, pulling it into his mouth, as whores do.  With a final bite to the lobe, Credence slides down his body like a cat, uncaring that he’s kneeling in the puddle of water.  Graves’ stomach quivers in anticipation.  Credence grips tight his ruined hand, as it rests on his thigh, and it does not seem he plans on letting go of it anytime soon.      

“You,”  Credence declares, his lips lingering somewhere near Graves’ hip bone, but doesn’t complete his thought.  He looks up to him and his eyes are like the night sky, like coals in a smouldering fire, like the onyx in the ring Graves slid on his finger in the stead of a wedding band.  Tears come to his eyes, unbidden, but Credence just presses a kiss to his other hip bone and says again, as serious as the dead,  “You.”

Graves nods, at a loss for words.  They could not even begin to express what he feels in this moment, as Credence’s holds tight his scarred, unfeeling hand, as he looks up at Graves through dark lashes, as his eyes say everything words could never.

Credence bends his head and takes him into his mouth.  Pleasure curls in him, like a moth beating at the flames in his stomach, climbing higher and higher as it builds.  He sucks in a deep breath, but the air is caught in his lungs and he trembles as it escapes in shaking huffs.  Credence’s other hand rests against his thigh, bracing himself.  Soon he’ll move it up so he can hold Graves still, but he won't ever let go of his other hand.  He never has.

His knees are weak, but Credence made him sit so he would not fall.  They know each other so well.  They’ve known each other in every way possible, and God, Graves trusts Credence, he does.  He’s austerity personified, but he loves with a passion that could set the world ablaze.  Graves’ other hand moves from the tub’s edge to tangle in Credence’s hair, to sweep it to the side and hold it fisted, so he can watch the furrow of his brows, and where his lips are wrapped tight around him, moving up and down, licking him, pleasuring him, loving him.

He trusts Credence.  Graves would swear it on his mother’s grave.  But a little voice in his heads nags: why is he keeping secrets from him?

Graves closes his eyes and comes with a shudder.  Credence does not let go of his hand until the aftershocks are done running their course, but then he does.  Credence swipes the back of that hand across his mouth, the other still holding onto his softened cock.  Graves watches with hooded eyes as he then touches himself, spit and release smeared on the back of it.  His eyes never leave Graves’, until he too shudders through his own little death.

***

“I want to tell you something,”  Credence whispers,  “It’s something I’ve never told anyone before, but I trust you, and I love you.”  They lie facing each other in bed.  His hair is messy and black as a gale on the tip of Cape Horn.  His lips are still reddened from Graves’ pleasure, full and beckoning.  Credence’s thumb strokes rhythmically along his pulse, and his eyes glitter, reflected red from the candle sitting on the bedside table just over Graves’ shoulder.  To Graves’ surprise, a single tear falls from his eyes, trailing down his cheeks.

“What’s wrong?”  Graves murmurs soothingly.  The thought of Credence crying right after they made love is unbearable.  “You know you can tell me anything.”

Credence’s voice quivers like a leaf in autumn, and his tears look like amber honey.  “I don’t want you to leave me.”

Graves’ breath catches, broken glass in his chest.  “I will never leave you, no matter what.”  He promises, kissing Credence’s ring to emphasise his point.  He gave this to him, and when he did, he promised forever.

Credence’s brows furrow, eyes squeezed tight.  “I’ve been lying to you,”  he admits.

Graves rubs his hand on Credence’s waist.  His hipbones still protrude, no matter how much Graves feeds him.  “About what?”  He gently coaxes.

“The spirit in this house.”  He pauses, and Graves patiently waits for him as he struggles to put together his words.  “I’ve seen its kind before.”

“Of course you have,”  Graves says confused, unsure of how this is new information.

“No.”  Credence shakes his head.  “You don’t understand.”  Frustrated, he clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and it seems as though he’s going to give up and say nothing more, but then,  “It’s not human.”

The bedroom falls to silence.  All he hears is the sound of their breathing, and all he feels is the pressure of Credence’s now still thumb on his pulse.

Graves inhales sharply.  “What do you mean?  Is it not a ghost?”  

“I—”  Credence says, then stops.  He tries again.  “I’ve seen something like it before, during a meeting of Ma’s congregation.”  His eyes fall from Graves to his pillow, fixating on it almost desperately.  “It sat in one of the pews, hands on it’s lap, back straight, all prim and proper as it listened to her sermon.  It looked like a normal man, but its face wasn’t right.”  Credence’s thumb moves to Graves’ chin, trailing along it as he says,  “Its jaw was crooked.”  His eyes close, and he whispers, voice taking on a hint of agitation,  “Its mouth was too high, its nose wasn’t in the centre of its face.  It looked all wrong, like a melted doll, its features were falling apart.”  Credence swallows, and his hand shakes.  “I turned away, and unfocused my eyes to look past its disguise, like I would a passing spirit.  When I looked back, it had become a demon.”

“A demon,”  Graves repeats, and Credence nods, opening his eyes.

“It looked right at me, and the smile that slid on its face,”  Credence’s gaze goes unfocused.  He shivers.  “It corned me after the sermon, and tried to make we go with it, but I slipped from its grasp.  I ran from the church, and stayed away for days.  By the time I came back and tried to explain myself to Ma, she said I was no longer welcome, that I could take my demons with me, and die on the streets.”  Credence continues, still not looking at him.  “I wandered for days, cold, hungry, and scared.  A few older children eventually took me under their wing, but only because I was quick with my fingers.  I stole from people, Percy.  The rich and the poor equally.”  His gaze flashes to him, steely.  “I did it to stay alive, and never once regretted it.”

Graves’ eyes fill with moisture.  He lifts his hand to Credence’s and clutches at him tight.  “I know, Credence.  I understand.”  A long measure of silence falls between them, during which Graves feels as though there’s a serious danger of him cutting all blood flow to Credence’s hand with how tight he’s holding it, but he’s reluctant to let go, feeling as though he might disappear if he did.

And then Credence says,  “I saw it again, months later at the port, and it was exactly as terrible as I remembered.  It got on a frigate, and I never saw it again.”

“Until now.”

“This one…”  He pauses, inhales, and continues,  “This isn’t the same one, this one is younger.”

“Younger,”  Graves repeats.

Credence nods.  “In the bedroom, our first day here, I saw its true form.  Since then, it's been hiding.”

Graves swallows against the sudden wave of nausea, like a hand squeezing his stomach.  “Do you suppose that’s why it communicates through me, because it knows you fear it?”

A strange expression slides over Credence’s face.  “It frightens you too.”

“I don’t think it cares about my wellbeing as much as it does yours,”  Graves says, and the words taste like bile on his tongue.  He feels shaky, terrified that the spirit might materialize from nowhere and steal Credence away.  “The one you met before, what if it wanted you because you could see what it was?  Did it say anything to you?”

Credence draws in a breath, but shakes his head.  “It said nothing.”

***

Graves sleeps barely a wink, despite Credence slumbering away in his arms.  He awakens to an empty bed, the sun already high in the sky.  As he sits on the edge, tying his laces, he notices that the portrait usually sitting on the dressing table lies on the floor.  Credence must have knocked it over by accident.  Picking it up, he suddenly realizes that it is the only painting he has seen in this entire house.  The oil is as dirty as ever, but the sun is bright.  Taking it over to the window, he pushes back the curtain, only to find a few drops of now brown blood on the window sill.  He clenches his jaw, and his hand aches.

Tearing his eyes away, he studies the portrait closely.  He can see the girl when he angles it just so, her hair is as blonde as ever, eyes still dark.  She holds a book to her chest and her smile is bright, though there is a hidden sadness in her that he never noticed before.  He shivers in the draft from the window, and shuts the curtain.  The girl is once again consumed by the dust.  He puts down the portrait, then leaves the bedroom, heading downstairs.  He finds Credence in the kitchen, a plateful of untouched food in front of him as he reads from the notebook, the larger tome sits nearby, gold and madder looking very out of place in the Goldstein’s kitchen.

“How are you?”  Graves asks, resting a hand on his shoulder, and leaning over it to see what he’s reading.

“I think I’ve found something,”  Credence says distractedly.  His food lies cold.  It’s so unlike him to ignore a meal, whatever he found must be staggering.

“Well,”  Graves says when Credence does not elaborate,  “What is it?”

“A reason,”  Credence murmurs, finger moving along the page as he reads, underlining the words.  “For why the spirit is here.”

“Why?”  Graves asks.  Why does it want the man in the well that much?  It’s not as if it’s tethered to the place it died.  If it’s truly a demon, as Credence says it is, it should be able to leave.  Unless somehow, it cannot.

“I think it was summoned here,”  Credence says abruptly, tapping the cover of the larger tome,  “There are many spells in here, but the one that had the most annotations, the one he seemed the most interested in was one to summon the demon.”  Graves leans forward, interested.  “He called it an infernal spirit, an ifrit, but Percy,”  Credence says, turning his head to look at him, a distressed expression on his face,  “The spell requires a human sacrifice.”

Graves blinks, flabbergasted.  “Human sacrifice,”  he repeats dumbly.  Then with a horrific sort of realization, he whispers,  “The bones in the fireplace.”

“It must be tethered to this house.  It gave you the key so we could find this because it wants to be free.”  Credence says, picking up the tome, flipping through the pages.  He finds what he’s looking for, pointing to a passage.  “This is it, this is the Arabic prayer for its banishment.”

Graves stares at the page in distress, then back up to Credence.  “I don’t know how to speak Arabic, and neither do you.”

“But we know of someone who does,”  Credence says resolutely,  “And we have the spell to summon him.”

Graves steps back, rubbing a hand over his stubbled jaw.  Everything suddenly makes sense.  The spirit wants the man in the well because if he summoned it, he can surely dismiss it.  Graves crumples into the other chair, relief making him giddy.  He grins widely, feeling as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders.  Credence smiles back tentatively, and returns to his reading.  Graves reaches across the table for the teapot, pouring himself a cup, uncaring that it’s gone cold.

He thinks of the girl’s portrait as he sips his tea, wondering who she is, and how she knew the man in the well.  He’s lost in his thoughts when it suddenly hits him.  Something that does not fit—an outlier.  He sets down his teacup, and the cold tea slops over the edge.  Once again, it feels as though everything is spiraling out of his control.  Turning his head, he can just make out the roof of the dug well through the cloudy kitchen window.

Who put the body in the well?

***

Graves places the candles on the floor beside Credence, grimacing when he sees a bowl full of blood on his other side.  It explains the dead chicken on the kitchen counter, and why Credence left the house in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, it also explains the chicken coop out back.  It appears that their owner was not raising them just for eggs.

Speaking of the previous owner: his skeleton lies in pieces on the ballroom floor, creamy bone, and a skull with a hole caved in.  Maybe from when he died, but going by how recent the chip looks, it was likely from when Graves tossed the stone into the well.  He has no sympathy for the bastard, and unapologetically handles his remains, arranging the bones the way Credence asks.

The child’s bones stay in the wooden box they found for them.  Their peaceful slumber is the only rest they do not wish to disturb.  Personally, he hopes this spell will violently wake their murderer with drums and cymbals.

“Are you ready?”  Credence asks, lighting the last candle and blowing out the match.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready,”  Graves admits, crouching by Credence’s side.

“Just remember, don’t step in the circle,”  Credence says, rubbing his hands on his knees.  His palms have always gone clammy when he’s nervous, and right now Graves is thankful for that normalcy.  “That’s the spirit’s domain.  It cannot leave, but if you enter it, it can do anything it wishes.”

“What happens if it breaks?”  Graves asks, morbidly curious, eying the blood, and wondering just what power it holds that it can stop an angry spirit.  Credence said something about blood and life magic, but he had not paid much attention beyond the chicken’s lifeless eyes.

“I honestly don’t want to think about that,”  Credence says, pulling the bowl of blood close.  He dips the basting brush in the blood.  Graves will have to replace it before the Goldsteins notice it missing.  Along with the bowl.  There’s no amount of water or soap that can wash away what they’ve used them for.

“It doesn’t have to be round,”  Credence explains as he paints a lopsided circle, Graves climbs to his feet, wordlessly watching him crawl on the floor.  “It just has to be whole and unbroken.”  He intermittently dips the brush in the bowl, pushing the blood into all the cracks in the wood, all the imperfections.  Graves remembers cleaning that floor, and thinking that the herringbone pattern was beautiful.  The bloods makes the grime in the corner nearest the window seem like nothing.  They’ll have to tear out the whole floor because this blood will never come out.

Graves rubs his hand on his forehead as he walks in circles, pacing nervously, waiting for Credence to finish.  A year ago he captained a corvette in the Mediterranean.  A year ago he thought his father would live to a ripe old age.  A year ago he believed he'd have time enough to build a long and worthy career before he would have to return home.  Now here he stands with a ruined arm, his career in shambles, and the man he loves summoning a murderer's spirit from the beyond in order to banish a demon.  His life is a complicated mess to say the least.

Credence dusts off his trousers as he stands.  “It’s finished.”

The circle is rather unremarkable in its shape and decoration.  Lit candles encircle its perimeter, but the only thing noteworthy about it is the fact that it is drawn in blood.  Graves was expecting pentagrams, among other magical symbols, but Credence says the real magic lies in the bones and in his intentions.  The bones in question lie at the center, also arranged into a circle.  Four unlit candles burn at four corners of an imaginary square.  They will light when he arrives, but once the candles burn out, the spell will break, and the spirit will leave this plane.  It’s not permanent, so he won’t have to worry about infecting the Goldstein’s house with another spirit.  Graves has a feeling that Tina would disapprove greatly of the danger he’s putting Credence in.  Nevermind that Credence was the one to suggest it in the first place.

Credence picks up the brush and bowl, depositing them on the table, beside the music box.  Graves is tempted to ask for one final dance, but he feels that Credence will not appreciate his grave sense of humour.  Pulling his gold and onyx ring from his index finger, Credence sends Graves a quiet smile, as he places it beside the bowl.  Onyx for his dark eyes, gold for his warm heart.  God, Graves hopes he gets a chance to tell Credence that he had the ring made from a broken necklace that once belonged to his mother.  He should have mentioned it a long time ago, but never felt that it was the right time.

Retrieving the notebook from his pocket, Credence walks over to the circle, shoes clacking on the floor.  He sits cross-legged in front of it.  The candles flicker as Credence opens the notebook, and Graves lowers himself into the nearby settee.  The garish brocade of flowers and ornate patterns seem out of place in this dark atmosphere.  He grabs the wooden arm, white knuckled in anticipation.

Credence clears his throat, and the sound echos in the spacious ballroom.  He places the book on the wooden floor, then unfurls his hands, spreading them palm side down on either side of himself.  It’s so quiet, Graves can hear himself breathe.  He feels the air passing through his lungs, his nose, then out his mouth.  In and out, in an out, then in and out again.  Like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, he breathes.  Graves suspends all disbelief, and just lets his limbs relax.  He breathes, and he believes, as was asked of him.

The floor shakes beneath his feet in a way that would go unnoticeable, if he had not been waiting for it.  Credence gasps sharply then, a sound like the slicing of a knife.  He throws his head back, neck stretched long and unnatural.  Graves shudders, and it feels as though ice is sliding slow down his spine.  Credence’s eyes are as white as freshly fallen snow.  

Credence's head drops suddenly like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Are you here with us?”  He murmurs to his lap, his voice uncharacteristically low and guttural.  “Are you in this room, are you…”  He trails off, his head tipping to the side.  A wind rustles the gauzy cornflower curtains, blowing in a whisper.  The windows are closed, Graves made sure of it, yet they still move.  “...with us?”  Credence continues, swallowing,  “I can feel you here.  I can sense you.”  He inhales.  “I can hear you.  What is your name?”

Credence tips his head the other way, closing his eyes.  The curtains quiver, an unnatural undulation that no worldly wind could cause.  “Yes, I know your name, and it gives me power over you.”  The curtains move violently, rattling on their rings, plaster raining as their fixtures shake.  “You will listen to me—”

The fabric tears with a sharp rip, flying right across the room, but Credence ducks just in time.  Graves is not as lucky.  The fabric tangles around his face, and he grabs at it, but it’s as though it’s actively trying to smother him.  He pulls it away from him, struggling, but every time he tugs it back, more fabric comes to take it’s place.  Panic makes his blood run cold, and as he tries to open his mouth to breathe, the fabric flies in, choking him.  He vaguely hears Credence shouting.

“Yes!  You will listen to me now, Gellert Grindelwald, for I hold you in my thrall.  You will obey, and you will keep _quiet_.”

The curtains stop moving, and it falls to a puddle in his lap.  Disgusted, Graves kicks them away, and the room falls to silence.  Inside the circle, the four candles flare to life, burning even brighter than the ones outside.  The room heats, and it feels as though a heavy presence sits at the candles’ centre.  Sweat drips down the back of his neck, slipping beneath his shirt.  A groan sounds, like the creaking of a weight settling on the old wooden floor.  Graves gasps as a ghostly apparition forms at the center of those four candles, right above the bones, wavering as the flames do.

“You have the power she had.”  The voice that speaks is cruel and seductive all at once, but it is also so very clear.  It is as if the owner stands right in front of them, talking in a flesh and blood body, instead of a spectre form.  A tendril of white smoke reaches for Credence but the circle of blood stops it.  “You don’t deserve it.”

Credence ignores the voice, saying in a commanding tone,  “Gellert Grindelwald, you will recite the Arabic invocation, and you will banish the infernal spirit.”

“I deserve the gift,”  the voice growls lowly,  “After all the work I’ve done, after all those relics I’ve unearthed, after those curses consumed me, I deserve it!”  The floor beneath them shakes, and Graves holds even tighter onto the settee’s arm.  “It is mine!”  He shouts, and the noise resonates like a drum.  The cloud of smoke explodes, shooting off in all directions, trying to find a crack in the circle where there is none.  “Where am I?”  He exclaims, arrogance fading to horror,  “Why am I back here?  I freed myself of this place!”

“We have summoned your spirit to rid this house of the ifrit,”  Credence explains, sweat beading at his brow as he concentrates intensely, fingers like claws digging into the floorboards.

“Send me away!”  He cries in terror, voice cracking at the edges,  “Send me back to hell!”  The whiteness swipes through the flame, but the candles don’t waver, burning at a steady rate.

“Say the invocation and I will dismiss you,”  Credence says.

“It will come for me!”  The voice shrieks, exploding again, and again in his urgency to escape, but he cannot break through.

“The circle will protect you.”

“Nothing will protect me!”  He screams shrilly, and it sounds like shattering glass.  Graves bows his head, clutches at his ears in pain.

“Then banish it, and it will not have you,”  Credence says, glancing over to him in worry, his voice taking on a hint of desperation.

“Don’t you see, stupid boy?”  He hisses,  “The invocation does not work, I tried it already.  One needs to be pure of heart—”

“And your heart is as cold as ice,”  a melodic voice says.  Graves whips around, and his heart stops in his chest for one terrifying moment.  He nearly falls off the settee at what he sees.

A young man not a day over eighteen stands in the doorway.  Red hair like blood grows from his scalp, falling just past his shoulders.  Half moon spectacles sit on the bridge of a long nose, and flames burn in his eyes like holy fire.  As he opens his mouth to speak, fire reaches out in tongues, spilling over his lips.

The ifrit.  This time it does not wear Seraphina’s face, but that of a stranger whose jawline seems terribly familiar.  It reminds him of the girl’s portrait.

“Al…”  the smoke vibrates, whispering reverentially,  “Albus.”

“I warned you, did I not, Gellert?”  The ifrit sweeps into the room, the smell of burning wood following in his wake.  Its feet sear into the floor, burning perfectly shaped footprints wherever it steps.  “Of what would befall us if we attempted to command forces beyond our understanding, beyond our control?”

“Albus,”  the smoke pleads, coalescing into what might almost be a shape,  “It was all within our grasp, so much power at our fingertips.  Do not pretend you did not desire it as I did.”

“Even so, how could you kill her?”  The ifrit asks, and sparks fly from its lips like spittle, it sounds so very angry.  It never showed emotions when it was Seraphina, but as this Albus, it burns with fury.  “I thought you loved her, as I loved you.  I thought it would be the three of us, together forever.”

The floor vibrates beneath them, it feels like an earthquake but Graves knows it isn’t anything as simple.  It’s the tear Credence has ripped in the veil between the worlds, it’s closing, and it demands its property back.  Credence’s hair is wet with sweat, and he looks pallid, exhausted in his effort to hold it open just a bit longer, but the candles burn brighter, consuming the beeswax faster.  All too soon, they will go out.

The smoke scoffs.  The shape it was forming, dissolves, falling to ashes.  “You cannot fool me, demon,”  the smoke rumbles.  “Al was as eager to be rid of her as I was.”

The ifrit tilts its head to the side, and it reminds Graves of a cat studying its prey before pouncing.  “Yes, of course.  I can never remember which brother Ariana hated, and which one she loved.  Aberforth, Ariana, and Albus.  Two children neglected, only one treasured.”

It stops at the edge of the circle, and Credence looks up to it, eyes as wide as the moon.  Graves sees a red-haired man, but he hates to think what Credence sees.  Whatever it is makes all the blood leave his face in a hurry.  He scurries away, like a frightened animal, startling when he backs into Graves’ legs.  Graves bends over, wrapping his arm around his neck, bracketing him in with his legs.  Credence grabs onto his trouser leg and does not let go.  Graves does not even care when he hears it tear.  He whispers soft comforts into Credence’s ear, but it does nothing to soothe his stiffness.  Graves holds him tight as they watch what unfolds in front of them.

“You remember her name, don’t you, Gellert?”  The ifrit asks.

The smoke quivers, as the ifrit waits, a red eyebrow quirked.  Graves strokes Credence’s hair in comfort as they helplessly watch.  The smoke takes on a hint of deferential supplication as he says,  “I didn’t know.  I didn’t know you knew her.”

“She had abilities your small brain could not even comprehend.”  The ifrit glowers, and a sound like a gunshot startles him and Credence.  The floorboards catch fire beneath the ifrit’s feet.  Graves stares on in horror, but it does not seem to spread anywhere, it remains contained to the ifrit’s position.  Flames licking at his heels, just like Graves’ last moments on his ship.  “I did not simply _know_ her, she was my friend, she comforted me as you ordered the defilement of my home from the comfort of your writing desk.”  The ifrit’s canines seem to grow, from human teeth, to curved protrusions that would be commonplace on a tiger.  “Trader of artefacts, defiler of tombs!”  Sparks fly from its mouth, skating across the floor, as it snarls,  “You smothered her with a pillow, and lit her on fire, expecting my appreciation of the sacrifice!”

“I jumped down that well!”  The smoke screams.  “I killed myself to appease you!  Isn’t that punishment enough?”

“You did it out of fear because the incantation did not work,”  The ifrit growls, a deep rumbling that makes Graves’ hair stand on end.  He wants to take Credence and flee this house, but he’s frozen in place.  “Only the pure of heart can banish me, your weak invocation did not even touch me.  You thought that in death you could escape, but you could not hide for long.”  Fire licks up the ifrit’s legs—a pyre it created for itself.

The smoke quivers.  “It wasn’t my intention to trap you in this house.”

“Trap me?”  The ifrit throws back its head, the skin over its throat glows a deep burgundy, like the embers of a fire.  Its laugh sounds like the ringing of a thousand chimes.  It rattles in his head, like something no human should be allowed to hear.  “You could not hope to trap me.  I chose to remain, for Ariana.  She asked that I not rest, that I not sleep, until I have your soul in my clutches.”

“Percy,”  Credence whispers weakly, and Graves looks back to him in worry.  Credence clutches his arm, looking at him with fear in his white eyes,  “I cannot hold on for much longer.”  Graves presses his forehead to Credence’s temple, whispering the prayers his mother taught him, he hasn’t said them in over thirty years.

“You’ll have to break the blood magic first,”  the smoke says, arrogance creeping back into his tone,  “And the candles are nearly extinguished.”  Graves looks over to them and finds they are but bare nubs, melted into a puddle on the floorboards.  They could go out at any moment, and then Grindelwald will be sent back to wherever he came from, and they will be left to contend with a furious ifrit.

“Oh God,”  Graves whispers, but the ifrit smiles a knowing smile.  It’s messy, and vicious, and looks all too much like the hurricane that blew his ship to pieces.  The hurricane that sparked a fire in the hold, igniting barrels upon barrels of gunpowder and pitch.

The smiling ifrit spits a burning red cinder onto the bloody ring, and the blood bursts into flames, incinerating to ashes in but a moment.  Just like his ship.  The smoke screams in terror, exploding again, but he cannot escape.  The ifrit reaches out, swiping at the air.  Victoriously, it raises a hand, holding onto a tendril of smoke.  Wrapping him around its wrist, it steps into the circle.  It pulls the smoke into itself, as it coils the soul of Gellert Grindelwald around its arm.

The face it wears falls away.  It shrinks in size until a small creature with a lion’s claws and a tiger’s teeth stands in the red haired man’s place.  Graves finally understands how such a mighty being could find good company in the presence of a small girl.  Credence was right, it is but a child in its own right, a companion to the girl whose portrait it kept.  The only portrait it deemed worthy to remain in the house.

“She was as furious as an ifrit, and her eyes were as mine,”  the ifrit declares, disappearing with a crack in an instant, taking the smoke with it.  Right in front of his eyes, Gellert Grindelwald’s bones crumble to ash.

Credence sags against him, colour floods back into his eyes before they close, and he passes out cold.  Exactly as he did after he removed the poltergeist from Seraphina’s house.  Graves’ hand shakes when he reaches for his neck, but he sighs in relief when he feels a steadily beating pulse beneath his fingers.  A soft clink draws his attention away from Credence to where the ifrit disappeared.

A familiar iron key lies on the swath of flooring turned to charcoal, as innocuous as the first time he saw it.  Graves drops his head to Credence’s shoulder, and lets out a shuddering breath.

***

“It’s gone now, right?”  Queenie asks as she stands in the foyer of her house, hands wringing her gloves, glancing around nervously.  The house already looks brighter, and the cold no longer seems to seep through the windows.  It’s nicer, but Graves will never forget that two people died here, and that a demon child made this house its home for over half a century, longing for revenge.  If Queenie invites him back him back for dinner, he’s sure to graciously reject the invitation.

“Yes,”  Graves says confidently, arms folded across his chest, before wincing,  “Though, there may be… structural damage?”

Tina whirls around to glare at him from her place on the steps.  She cautiously walks back down to the ground floor, twin eyebrows dipped dangerously low.  “Structural damage?”  Graves shrugs his shoulders sheepishly.

“You’ll need to replace the ballroom floor,”  Credence says no nonsense, thankfully cutting in.  He leans right by the door, veritably itching to leave.  Graves cannot blame him, the Goldsteins are two very intimidating women.

Tina’s eyebrows climb up to her hairline, and Graves is impressed with the elastic qualities of her face.  Eventually, she sighs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  She looks to Graves, then to Credence.  “Thank you,”  she says sincerely, giving Credence a wide, but exhausted, smile.  He nods his head to her, then accepts the hug Queenie offers him.  He pulls back and glances to Percy before quirking an eyebrow.  Graves tips his hat to both sisters, then follows a very impatient Credence out of the house.

Graves twirls his cane in his hand and walks down the steps, holding onto his hat as a gusty wind blows by, sending leaves and discarded newspaper flying onto the street.  Graves stops on the sidewalk, turning his face to look up to the house.  Its whitewash is still fading, but the Goldsteins will soon touch it up.  They’ll tear up the floors, and pull down the moldy wallpaper.  They’ll clean up all the dust, and remove the dead chickens from the yard.  They’ll brick up the well, and perhaps the old fireplace.  They’ll clean Graves’ blood from the windowsill.

Credence opens the door to their coach, climbs in, and holds out his hand to Graves.  His coachman tips his hat at him.  This is the fifth trip he’s made today, before the Goldsteins returned.  The man deserves a bonus, and Graves reminds himself to have Credence write him one.  Graves slips his hand into Credence’s, smiling back is he’s pulled into the crowded coach.  There’s no room to sit opposite Credence, so he sits beside him, their thighs pressed so close together, he’s practically in his lap.  He has to pull on the door to get it to close, and wonders if he should have had his coachman make another trip.

The Goldsteins will go down to the cellar eventually, and when they do, they’ll find a small, unlocked room with many empty crates.  But, they won’t think anything of it.  No clue remains as to what was in them, and they won’t miss their contents.  As far as they’ll know, they were used to store furniture.

Credence takes his ruined hand and pulls it into his lap, folding their fingers together.  He flips through a book, its linen cover stained a deep tyrian purple.  The book on the other seat has gold leafed onto the edges of its pages, the one stacked on top of that isn’t really a book at all, it’s more of a manuscript, the pictures illustrated within reminding Graves all too much of the ifrit.  In their last trip they carried more manuscripts like that.  The other books piled in stacks contain more words that illustrations, but Credence seems to find them just as exciting, despite being unable to read them.

Credence looks up at him and offers a glowing smile, excited, resplendent even.  Graves wonders if he’d have to figure out a way to send Credence to university, or if he could just put an ad in the paper for an tutor familiar with Arabic.  He hasn’t spoken to the other lieutenant who served under William Picquery since the funeral, but he remembers Theseus mentioning that he had a brother who spent some time in the Sudan.  He imagines that Newton Scamander will have many opinions on the artefacts and books piling up in Graves' study.

The coach rumbles along the cobblestones and Graves smiles.  He closes his eyes, and settles back in his seat for a well deserved rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief suicide mention of a character who is already long dead, also Graves and Credence steal a lot of shit, so they're real bad boys
> 
> Ifrits are supernatural beings originating in Middle Eastern tales, they're a kind of djinn who are attracted to the cries of a murdered victim seeking revenge. The interesting about them is that in some stories they're not necessarily evil. Like people, ifrits can be bad, but they can also be good, they are basically like people (but not really, since they're infernal spirits) with a flamey skin condition.

**Author's Note:**

> For the trick prompt #30: "spending the night in a haunted house"


End file.
